Episode 480: The Pornography Crisis: How We're Accidentally Destroying Our Kids' Ability to Connect

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1:54the average kid today sees less sunlight and daylight than a prisoner does so your average kid today i saw that gets outside less than what our prisoners do how crazy and they they have two days the prisoners have two times a day where they get to come out take a walk outside and do their thing. And they, on average, get more time outside than our children do today. Here's another alarming one. You know what the average age of a kid who sees pornography on the internet is? What? 10. 10. That's the average age a kid comes across some kind of nudity or pornography on the internet. What was it 20 years ago?

2:37Oh, I don't know. I don't know. But I mean, that's terrible. Oh, it's, it's, but. Well, I was in high school when I saw my first dirty magazine, I think. Yeah. But we had like, you know, when we were young, we had Playboy. You had like. That's what I mean. That was all. That was all you had. But you had like five pages of the same, like this kid, if they go on the internet, it's like infinite craziness. Crazy stuff. And so we, what we didn't say earlier about this was when you guys were young, you guys had Playboy. You looked at what, like some boobs and whatever. but like now it is so nasty raunchy stuff that like people guys now believe that's what's like the norm so when they actually meet a girl in like in ira in real time or whatever in real life or they their expectations are so outrageous that nothing will ever match that expectation so they just rather go back to porn versus like dealing with a girl and her issues and like whatever like you know stuff that she has to deal with it's classic so it's it's uh it's actually uh it's worse than people realize because it has drug-like effects but it's also acting on a very strong natural um driver that we need to have we're supposed to have this driver yeah so what it's doing is it's manipulating this natural driver and distorting it.

3:57And it's got profoundly, profound negative impacts on our life. And the data on this now is becoming super clear on what it does. But what happens like with all drugs, right? Caffeine is an example. You have one cup of coffee, I'm zooming. Three days later, if I drink it every day, I need another cup. Totally. So what's happened and the stats and the data on this is really interesting is that pornography he's gotten more and more and more extreme to meet consumer demand because of the novelty effect. Weaker. They got to keep going. And it gets worse and worse and worse to the point now where some of the top viewed things are things that allude to incestual relationships and stuff that is like, what is going on here?

4:42Right, just to kind of keep it as— Violence and, yeah. Because you're right. because you become so desensitized to whatever you are watching. It's like caffeine, like you said. It's like working out. We're wired to seek novelty as creatures. We're wired to go out. And if that's no longer novel, seeing gang bangs every day, it's like I need the next level, the next novel thing. And so that's the natural progression. And I don't think a lot of people, I think it's something that a lot of men are embarrassed about or don't share and don't talk about. And so I think it's even worse than what we realize.

5:13I could, let me tell you right now. I am a grown man. Okay. And I went off, uh, I completely went off pornography, uh, over a year ago, um, because I saw the data, all that stuff. Plus had a spiritual conversion went off it complete. It was actually great. But I remember trying to go off it before and it was really challenging as a grown man. I couldn't imagine being a 15 year old boy with a smartphone. Couldn't imagine what that would have done to me as a, as a 15 year old boy with that kind of access that would have been, you might as well have handed me cocaine every day and said, here you go good luck let's see what you let's see what happens i can't imagine and this is what's happening when you're giving your kid a smartphone you're giving them access to everything the world not everything all of its terrible is in there it's really really crazy it is so do you i mean are you guys i there's i'm optimistic i feel like uh you know the there's there's more and more TED Talks and books that are coming out and more and more parents.

6:13We have enough years now behind us and we're seeing all these things unravel and get worse. And so I want to believe that we're in the thick of some of the hardest times when it comes to this because, you know, and I feel bad for parents like you guys who, like I have a five-year-old, so I had already read the book Irresistible, Unplugged. I read those books before I had him, iGen. So I was very like on top of that right away. Whereas I can't imagine if I had a 19-year-old or 15-year-old when iPhone was brand new and everybody was celebrating how great it was, not realizing. I don't think a lot of parents that have got teenagers right now were thinking about how detrimental this was going to be where I think it's a conversation now.

7:00So I'm optimistic about where we're heading. I think that we're just, we're barely just starting to create a lot of awareness around it. And I want to believe as society, we'll, we'll figure it out or we'll be, and I think it'll become more common that when you go to a bunch of parents like that, they're going to, I mean, I just experienced this with my son. I told these guys on air the other night or the other day that my, we went up to our truckie place up in Tahoe. And we went with a couple that I'd never hung out with. It was my son's best friend at school. And this is the first time I'm hanging out with them.

7:35So I don't really know the parents. I'm getting to know them. And we're like on the second or the third day. And I make a comment to the dad. I said, hey, I noticed your son hasn't asked for an iPad or anything this entire time we've been up here. And he's like, oh yeah, no, he works for Netflix. And he's like, oh yeah, we won't even let him watch it or have it. We've not introduced it to him. I said, I love that. Really? Yeah. So it's so cool to meet other parents that are aware of that and have just made the conscious choice. And it's so cool because my son and him, they don't even think twice about it because we regulate that really closely at our house.

8:09And then here he is playing with another kid who doesn't. So it's not a problem. It's not hard because he's with another kid who has parents. So I'm hoping that we'll see more of this. Well, I think also, to your point, Sal, about basically surrounding yourself with people who are like-minded. Building that community is so important because it's very easy when you basically are peer pressured into doing things. As a parent. As a parent. I also think it depends on where you live. Like Los Angeles versus living in maybe Kansas is very, very different in terms of different pressures, what you kind of are around, what you're, you know what I mean?

8:52Like to me, that makes a major difference as well. You're in the belly of the beast. You are in the belly of the beast. Yeah. I am. Yeah. But what's going to say is what I actually find super interesting too is to what you just said about the guy that you were with who works at Netflix. What I find super curious is why is it that people who work for Meta, who work for TikTok Because they know. I was going to say, isn't that interesting that they will not allow their kids on these This is what blew my mind when I read Irresistible. There's a great book by Adam Alter called Irresistible. And I remember sharing it on the podcast years ago with these guys.

9:27And I was like, dude, and the guys who created this tech don't allow their kids to use it. Because they knew how much they were making this to be addictive that they wouldn't even allow their own kids to use it. I said, what does that tell you if the creators of it? That's what I find to be so fascinating. If the people who actually created it, it's actually what you were saying. It's true. What they do is they basically mimic slot machines in Vegas. That's how they create it. People don't realize these things are not made for you and I, the users. It's a marketing machine. That's why the algorithm picks up and tracks what you watch to give you more of it so they can make money off of you.

10:09They didn't do this out of the goodness of their heart. They didn't create Instagram and TikTok. Say, here you go. Be entertained for 24 hours a day. They did it because they knew they can make money. They can sell you all sorts of stupid random shit that you would otherwise never know about. And people just are not realizing this is not for them. That's why people who create and make their businesses on Instagram, the smartest thing you can do is take your audience and take them off of Instagram, like get them into a different database. So you can then, because this is rented, not owned. Like you don't own Instagram.

10:48This is, they're making money off of you, not, not vice versa. I'm also hopeful too. I'm not big on government policy, but if enough parents band together and actually start pressuring, you know, schools and, and a lot of these places where, you know, obviously this is affecting kids to a degree where we saw the detriment of cigarettes and we saw the detriment of alcohol and we're like, okay, we need more restriction and access here. And so you see a little bit of this in Florida where they're experimenting with like an age for social media at least. And it seems to me that if this subject keeps coming up, we keep having these kind of conversations, more people bring that awareness to it.

11:29It's like we need to all really start pressuring and affecting policymakers. There's light at the end of the tunnel. So there's a small spike or you're starting to see a small rise in kids who are getting flip phones. They're actually wanting them themselves. You're seeing - I posted about that the other day. Yeah, there's a rise in young men who are going off pornography. There's groups online that talk about this. And for the first time in, I don't know how many decades, you've seen declining rates of church attendance and Christianity, right? The main religion in America has flattened out and start starting to reverse.

12:04And the largest growth is in Gen Z. The largest growth in that is Gen Z. And they're going for the more traditional Orthodox versions of Christianity, which to me points to the fact they need some structure. They're looking for structure and discipline because they're like, I can do whatever I want. This doesn't feel good. I feel like crap. I like going to this place that's like, here's how we live. It feels much more secure and better and I'm getting some purpose in my life. So there is some light at the end of the tunnel. There are some schools also who are becoming phone-free. In Australia, they passed a law that you cannot bring a phone.

12:36There's some schools already in the US that have done that. But you know what? it's bringing awareness. And the more you talk about it and the more we educate people on the actual true data and effects that this is having, hopefully the more people will kind of band together and do that. Kids thrive in an environment with a predictable, consistent structure, love, support, and empathy, and where you allow them in an age-appropriate way to overcome challenges and obstacles. If you do those three things, you've done like 99 % of all of it. If it's an inconsistent environment with no structure or discipline, you're going to raise a very anxious kid who doesn't know what to expect.

13:24If you raise a kid with no love, that obviously, I think everybody understands, that totally screws them up. And if you don't let them encounter challenges and actually feel the struggle of the challenge, you're going to raise a kid that's fragile. And by the way, one of the ways that parents do this is you got a kid who's crying because they didn't get what they want. And one thing, a big mistake that parents made, I did this with my older kids, is you put on, oh, stop, let's put on your favorite show. And what you did is you taught your child to disassociate from the challenge. They're distracting themselves from whatever they were going through.

13:59And then they become adults that disassociate from challenges rather than letting them be uncomfortable, which makes you uncomfortable as a parent. So you got to ask yourself, I do this all the time. I'm like, is it me? Like my kid's having a fit right now and I'm having a problem with it, but I'm uncomfortable with it. So I got to let them sit through this and I got to, I'll be there with them and I'll sit next to them, but I got to let them feel this thing. I got to deal with my own uncomfortable feelings around it. So a lot of this is actually training the parents to be uncomfortable with discomfort also, right?

14:28Like, that's what I'm saying. Like, it's very interesting because it's like, it's a dual thing here because it is very uncomfortable to watch your kid be uncomfortable and struggle. Nobody likes to see that. Of course. And like, I'm a Jewish mom on top of it, so you can imagine. So it's extra hard for me, right? It's extra, extra hard. But I mean, being cognizant of what the issue is and working through it, because like I said, it's very easy just to give in, right? And like, we've trained our brains, us, to know better, right? And so we just have to kind of apply that with our kids. Yeah. And it's age appropriate stuff too, right?

15:09Like your one-year-old throws food on the floor. Not a big deal. Your 10-year-old throws food on the floor. It's different. Yeah. Right. So like my four-year-old's a great example. Like up until relatively recently, maybe a little while ago, every time we played a game, he would win because he doesn't understand losing. He just understands if I win, I win, I win. But not around the age of three and a half or four is when they start to figure out or they need to figure out that they can lose. so what do I do with him now? We play Uno, right? And so now we'll play Uno and now every five games I'll win.

15:40And he's, oh, okay, I'll try again. Now at two years old, he'll cry. He doesn't know what's going on. I don't want to play anymore. You crush your kid. So there's age appropriate ways to allow your child to encounter challenges because you also don't want to do this. There's also the authoritative non-loving parent which raises psychopaths. So it's the parent that's like, and it's the parent that raises the kid. No, no, do it this way and that's it. And you're whatever. whatever you raise a psychopath that way so there is a way to do this by figuring out the age appropriate ways to you know like your kid cries because uh they fell off their bike but they're five like okay that's fine your 15 year old falls down and cries every time they fall off their bike like we don't have to talk about this exactly but you know just to what you just said you know i never let my kids win at games ever ever ever yeah when they were one or two i'll be like yeah you want but like as they get older as they get older like i would have like i played i play rummy cube with them i play uno with them i play all those things and like i'm trying like my kid beats me nine out of ten times because they i've been trained to like actually have to put effort in it because again that's a microcosm for life like they're not going to win at everything and they're going to have to try and if i just allow them to just to kind of beat me every time what am i really It's important to learn this stuff too.

16:58Like the age appropriate. Well, I didn't do it at two, but I'm sure as hell doing it at nine. Like two or three-year-olds playing together. You know, you're like, no, you need to share. Two-year-olds don't understand that. They don't understand. They play in tandem. They play on their own. Parallel play, yeah. Four, five years olds. No, now you can't always play what you want. You got to play what other people want to. So then you start. So it's age appropriate is important because what can happen is you can get the parents that are authoritative and abusive who hear this like, yeah, I smack them whenever they win.

17:27You're not doing the right thing either, buddy. Do you guys think that the traditional values around gender roles and moving away from that has played a role in this also? Totally. Because when I hear you guys, what we're communicating right now too, there's a lot of qualities that mom just does a really good job of doing and the ones where dad, and it almost allows, you don't have to have this perfect balance. Dad could kind of be the hard ass who's always doing that. maybe isn't the best at showing love and affection because mom comes back behind all the time and picks her son up and makes him feel loved.

18:00Yeah, because you have an inconsistent environment when one person does both. Is mom going to act like a dad or mom today? Is she hard or is she soft today? And that's very true. You know, it's interesting. Like when I tell my kids not to do something, I'm like, don't do that. If I'm yelling at my kids to, but if my husband says it, they listen. They buck up really quickly and they'll listen. And I get so annoyed as a mom. I'm like, why would I say it? No one pays attention. But when you say it one time, kids are naturally more scared of their father than they are of their mom when there's two parents like that.

18:33It's true. Like it doesn't matter because I feel like naturally there must be an instinctually. Instinctually, moms feel more safe and comfortable. And like the dad, they can't get away with it. I brought up a stat. I told the guys the other day where a kid, they did a study with teachers, mom, dad, grandma, who do you think the kid, and they said is most likely to misbehave in front of. So think of every parent. So mom, dad, grandparent, teacher, all these people. And they studied all these kids, thousands of kids. And there was one of them that stood out more than any of them that the kid was more likely to misbehave in front of.

19:18The mom. Yeah. 900 % more. 900 %? 900 % more. Do you know why? But that was the reason why, was because the kid feels safe. Feel safe. And he can challenge boundaries. And that's part of life is kids are, part of raising kids is learning what I can and can't do. They feel the most safe and protected with mom. And so they're going to stretch those boundaries. Dad is not that way. Dad is more the authoritarian, more the disciplinary, more that person. And so that's the same thing in my household too. Katrina will drive her crazy. She's reminding him to do something like that. And then all I have to do is step in and said, Max, listen to your mom.

19:54And then they listen. Yeah. And then he gets right up. And she's just like, I just said that to him like seven times. And then you come over and do that. So crazy. It's 100%. I didn't know it was 900%. That's crazy. 900 % more likely to misbehave in front of mom. Yeah. Wow. I think the challenge with why the gender role issue has caused such an issue isn't because it's two reasons. One, we devalue the strengths that each person has, and we pretend like there are no weaknesses sometimes on either side. So we overvalue sometimes mom or dad, depending on the situation, and we don't realize they both have value.

20:30They're both very important. Like, how many times have moms told dads, don't wrestle with the kids before bed, you're going to rile them up? No, no, don't rile them up. What are you doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know how important it is? I think how valuable it is that dad gets to do that with their kid, like the skills that they learn, you know, or the dad to the mom. Oh, come on. Stop coddling, coddling when he's crying. That's important that mom can provide that. It's okay. Cause you provide the other side. Yes. There's a balance. Yes. That's my point of why, like, do you think I, I believe that it's played a role and I know that's a controversial thing to say because we've tried to eliminate traditional gender roles, but there's something to be said about how valuable, how organically it used to happen because dad just was that guy dad dad didn't have to be better about coddling and empathy and doing those things because mom was so good at it and so he could get away with being you know dad who works all day long and then he just comes around and he disciplines all the time and they still raise a decent kid well yeah that's because mom did such an organic job great job of balancing that out and vice versa right like she didn't always have to be the one who's hard, disciplining all time because she knew her husband could come in and do that.

21:36And it's unfortunate that we have shamed people for so long about following these kind of traditional values and gender roles when there's a lot of value that comes from that. And it's not to say that you can't have a dad who has more empathy or a mom that has more discipline. That's not the point of this conversation. It's just that we've eliminated that so much or we've shamed that so much that, oh my God, that traditional is so old school and so bad. And we point out all the bad and it's like, well, okay, there was some really good things that used to happen when mom had her role and dad had his role because we are different and we have different strengths and those strengths feed and play into raising a kid.

22:19And by the way, like after everything we've just talked about on this show, right? Like there are very, there are gender roles in my opinion for a reason, right? I feel like the world like works better when that's the case, even with, when it comes to dating, when it comes to socializing, when it comes to raising a child, there's like, it's, that's why it's a natural instinct. And what we're trying to do is eliminate the, their natural instinct and create this other form of being because it's more progressive. And to me, that's when we've had this demise in every walk of life. We've had this demise in raising children.

23:09We've had this demise in dating and cohabitating. We've had this in relationships. We've had this demise in work, in professional. like in every way there's been a demise because we are trying to like we're trying to create this other instinctual way to be which is impossible right like and this is not me being like a you know like this like super hardcore right-wing traditional no like i'm super malleable in a lot of ways but i do believe that like there are roles for a reason like women like for women we talked last time I was even on the podcast. Like there's certain like, there's certain traits that women should have.

23:54And there are certain traits that men should have for the world to work better. Right. Like in order for a woman to be attracted to a man, men have to have certain traits beyond just being tall. And they have, like you were saying, bravery, you know, like leadership, leadership confidence like security security like duh who wants a weak guy i don't really care what you say right but and women like no matter what like women should have to have like some sense of softness some nurturing some like maternal instincts like you don't have to be a total like you know stepford wife obviously not like do i look like a stepford wife no but there are certain things that are, I think.

24:38The world's lied to us a lot and it's sold us a lot of, of lies. And what it's done is, um, it's over, it's glorified the attributes, uh, that men provide and it's completely undervalued. I'm talking about the world, right? Society undervalued the attributes that women provide. So it's like, let's celebrate the first woman to build a skyscraper, first female astronaut, first whatever. And so it's like, it's celebrating these big conquests. Meanwhile, moms that raise incredible children, build incredible communities that provide emotional support, which women do exceptionally well. Like all great people were raised probably by a great mother to an extent, or there's a great mother there.

25:27We've undervalued that. And now I think it's starting to change, but it's to the point where like my wife stays at home with the kids. She doesn't hear this so much, but I remember my mom, my mom will stay at home. She almost felt embarrassed saying that when people would ask, what do you do for a living? Oh, I'm just a, I'm just a homemaker because it was so undervalued. I love that. I'm just a, you know, it's crazy. It's like, by the way, I mean, I'm obviously not a homemaker by any stretch, but I will tell you that's the hardest job in the world. Of course it is. When I have to stay home for two days with my children alone, I'm running back to work.

26:01There's nothing more challenging. It's the hardest thing in the world. Yeah, yeah. And to raise a good human being, it's incredibly difficult. Is there anything more important? No, there's nothing more important. No, there's nothing. That's what I'm saying. I work so that my wife can raise my kids, most importantly, and my work can change. I'm not going to switch my kids out for better kids or whatever. That's the most important thing. But my point is the world's lied to us and it's lied to us and it's undervalued what we tend to do best. There's nothing wrong with being, you know, a little more masculine, a little more family, whatever you want to label it or whatever.

26:34There's nothing wrong with that. But there are tremendous values in these things that we provide, especially as parents, especially as parents. And that's why I think like single parents have it real tough because you're trying to figure out doing both and it makes it a bit inconsistent i gotta be a little bit more like a little bit more like that but you know traditionally it's the dads that provided a lot of that that kind of that that discipline um a little bit of that challenge the the rough and tumble play the kind of tough it up a little bit kind of attitude thing typically came from dads and when dad's not there mom's got she's got a real difficult choice okay who am i going to be and She's probably going to default to the thing that she's best at, which is not those things, which is more of the safety and comfort nurturing, which can become by itself without the other side of it, a little toxic in the sense that now my kid, I fix every problem.

27:28I talk to every teacher that my kid has a struggle with. I don't like, oh, they're crying. Just like what would happen if the opposite was true. If the dad with just the discipline and the get up, you're fine attitude with no empathy. Yeah, a bunch of psychopath kids. so they're both extremely valuable just have way more single moms than single dads because dads tend to bounce but that's the case anyway good time we'll see how controversial this podcast is you always have controversial I don't let's see what happens but I love talking to you about it because you're not coming from the traditional right wing Stepford mom you're this business woman like badass and you work your ass off.