AI Therapy, “Mankeeping,” and Screen Addiction

24:39And then what do you do? That's all you have to do. We have C. We just had B. Back off. Well, B is back off. B is back off, yeah. Back off. You got to back off and you've got to wait. And then C is the hard part. You've got to model the change. But let me as a version of don't let them. It's a different version. See, I want you to be sneaky. I don't want you to try to change people because it's going to backfire. I want you to use your influence because I'll give you an example that'll make a lot of sense. Let's say you and I are at work and every single day around lunch, you close your laptop, you get up, you walk outside, you go for a walk, you come back 30 minutes later, you just look happy, refreshed, sit back down, like tap, tap.

25:20Now, meanwhile, I'm jamming the tuna sandwich down my throat and I'm working through lunch. You never once asked me to go for a walk. About a month after watching you do this, something interesting is going to happen. This is research, by the way, from Dr. Tali Sherritt. She studies the science of influence. About a month after watching you do this, all of a sudden, one day, I'm going to close my laptop and go for a walk. And you want to know something weird? I'm going to think it's my idea. Right. Right. But you and the power of your example and influence is the thing that actually influenced me in changing my own behavior.

25:56Because you saw it. You saw it patterned. And I saw you enjoying it. And I sat with the fact that every day at lunch, I sit there and make a different decision. And I know deep down. It's a bad decision. Correct. You still can invite someone if correct. You can. Yeah. You can. Yeah. No pressure. Right. Hey, you want to go for a walk? And if they don't, they're like, okay, you're missing out. Don't do that. Right. Well, fuck you. I got work to do. Like, see what I'm saying? And so, again, people change when they're ready to change. And people only change for themselves. And, you know, Dr. K, who I also love, basically said the basic wiring of the human brain is we default and move towards what's easy.

26:36And we reject what feels difficult. And that's why, back to my original point, you have to develop a skill for yourself where you're not sitting around waiting for it to feel easy to do the thing, where you actually understand it's never going to feel easy. Right, right. Five, four, three, two, one, I'm going to do the thing. Right. Certain people, it's very easy to let them. Other people, it's not so hard. That's the difficulty. Like my son, my oldest son, I do a lot of, I do a version of that, I guess. Like, how do you feel? And it sounds good. I really trust you. I often say I really trust your instinct on lots of things.

27:09You're a great mom. Not all the time. No, let me tell you why that's important. It works on that, but other people, it doesn't. It doesn't work with my mom, I have to say. Well, because she's got a narcissistic personality style. Right. So she's going to do what she's ever going to do. Yeah. Well, you've got to let her be who she is. Your relationship will change with her profoundly, and I'm glad it's working for you. Because it's going to help you access detachment theory and radical acceptance. Well, that's where I have to go to. You do. She is never going to change. 60 years in. She's never— I have to do the same thing.

27:37I remember Joan Didion, she said, I'm in a war with my mother that continues forever, this quiet war that goes on and on and on. Because you wish. It was different. Yes. And that's what Dr. Romani Diversal says. Wishing somebody else is different is the source of your suffering in a relationship. That's sort of Buddhism, right? It is. Well, again, the let them theory is also radical. It's also the serenity prayer. Yeah. It is Buddhism. Right. And so. You got a lot of stuff in there. You got stoicism. You've got a lot. Because it all traces back to the fundamental truth that there's only three things you can control in life.

28:14It's what you think about what's happening. It's what you do or don't do in response. And with our parents or the people in our life that are very challenging, what you don't do is almost more important than what you do do. And it's what you do in response to those emotions. Like you may always, and lots of us, will feel that wave of grief and disappointment because a person can't be who we want them to be and who we maybe deserve to have them be. And those feelings are extremely valid and important. Yeah, you think you can change it. Yes, but what you do with it is what matters more because that's where your power is.

28:48And ultimately, as you start to use this, and again, you'll start to use it, let them, the moment you feel frustrated about anything, and you'll notice it's 99 % of the time about other people's behavior. and you say let them, your shoulders drop because you're putting a boundary up between yourself and the world where normally you'd allow the outside world and other people to impact you. Yeah, it does make a lot of sense. I'm still not going to let the tech bros do it because they're, you know, you know the word tech bro? Technically broken. But hold on. You don't have a choice. That's correct.

29:20But you have a choice of what to do about it. You're right. You're in the second part. Oh, you're so tricky. All right, Mel, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about people turning to AI for mental health advice.

29:57begins in IMAX. Tron Aries, rated PG-13. May be inappropriate for children under 13. Only in theaters October 10th. Get tickets now. There is a lot to talk about when we talk about Donald Trump and Jimmy Kimmel. One big question I've got is why, in 2025, are late-night TV shows, like Jimmy Kimmel's show, still on TV? Even in our diminished times, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, they're just some of the biggest faces of their networks. If you start taking the biggest faces off your networks, you might save some nickels and dimes. But what are you even anymore? What even is your brand anymore? I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels.

30:40And that was James Ponowozik, the TV critic for The New York Times. This week, we're talking about Trump and Kimmel, free speech, and a TV format that's remained surprisingly durable for now. That's This Week on Channels. wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

31:04Mel, we're back. Illinois just became the first state to regulate the use of AI in mental health care. The new law bans AI from acting as a standalone therapist and sets guardrails of how mental health professionals can use AI to support care. Meanwhile, OpenAI is updating ChatGPT to better detect emotional distress. The company says its GPT-40 model fell short in recognizing signs of delusion and emotional dependency in some cases, you think. The new behavior to handle what OpenAid calls high-stakes personal decisions is rolling out soon. Talk a little bit about this because a lot of people are relying on it.

31:38A ton of people. A lot of people? Enough. Now, hold on a second. There's actually a recent report from Harvard Business that says that since 2024 to 2025, this is a, literally it just came out a couple months ago, that the single top use case for generative AI in 2025 is therapy and companionship. Right. And I just want everybody to sit with that right now. Well, there's 700 million people that are using generative AI every week. Yep. The top use case, Harvard Business School report, and this is a major change from 2024, is for— Which was usually just, I want to get airline tickets. Generating ideas.

32:19Right. So 2024 was generating ideas, specific search. It was therapy and companionship, but now it's therapy and companionship number one. And so it is happening. And the first thing I want to say is I really want to applaud what's happening in Illinois because one of the things that is terrifying about what's happening with AI, and there's lots of wonderful things that are happening, but let's just talk about the terrifying thing that's happening. There's zero regulation. Zero. And if we have a situation where people are turning to AI in order to get advice, it's already happening. And the problem, because there is good stuff here.

32:58I brought a bunch of studies to talk about here, and I want to zoom out and talk about, well, why is this happening? Right. The reason why people are turning toward AI is because we are, first of all, as we've already discussed, living in an unprecedented moment of change and overwhelm and insecurity. Right. Information flood versus information desert, which existed before. And what we have is also combine that with a medical fact. Dr. Aditi Nurikar, Harvard Medical School, 80 % of people in the United States are living in a state of chronic stress, meaning you're in fight or flight. Right. Constantly.

33:30Constantly. And so if you're finding, as you're listening right now, that you're constantly overthinking, you're procrastinating more, you feel a little bit more anxious, you're having trouble thinking. And you have the tools to help you do that doom scrolling or constant news. Yes. We'll talk about that in a second. Your body won't reset without you resetting your stress response. And so you have this backdrop where you've got people in a state where they need support. and in the United States alone, for every 1 ,600 people that have depression or anxiety, there's only one mental health professional.

34:04And that's in the United States. There are some places in the world where for every 300 ,000 people that have depression, there's one. And so there is a huge need, but let's talk about - Also, people aren't connecting with their own close people too. They don't have that at work or wherever. Yes, and so I think it's important to just say that we need to look at the fact that people are searching for answers. And I personally believe that the fact that somebody is searching for answers is a good thing. Now, let's talk about where AI can support and where AI is very problematic. Because I think the single biggest issue that we're facing when it comes to generative AI is there's zero regulation.

34:43And we're living in a world, especially in the United States, where we now have a government that's more focused on profit than people. We have business regulation getting gutted. In fact, you've got the backdrop of Illinois passing this law, which I think it's a fabulous thing, but here's my concern. It seems like the law is focused primarily on AI products that are marketed as therapy. My concern is the average person is just going right there and doing a problem. Right, and it's also open AI is still the largest. Yes. And now they are trying to do things like sending out reminders to people to take a break when they've been chatting with a bot, but they also benefit from people just as any other, just as Facebook does and others, time spent.

35:22Well, here's my concern. Here's my concern. My concern is that against the backdrop of Illinois doing something incredibly positive, because this is what has to happen. What has to happen is we've got to wake the hell up and recognize that this thing is so out of control already. And we can dig into other areas and examples that I can give you from my own life in terms of where this is spinning out of control. But you've got to understand that this is against a backdrop where the Trump administration just revealed an AI plan outlining a 10-year moratorium on states being able to regulate this.

35:54Yes, they tried. And so you have platforms that are unregulated. You have businesses just pumping out these new businesses without regulation, and they are preying on people who need actual help. So they're meeting a need, which is what they're very good at. They're identifying and meeting a need. And one of the things for people, which I talk about all the time, we talk about this on Pivot constantly, the lack of regulation in general in tech and in AI in particular. They don't have – I always like when I'm in a group of people, I say, put your hand up how much regulation you think there is in AI.

36:28And people go, 100. Well, it's 100. And I go, there's zero. There's zero. I'm going to give you some examples in a minute. So go ahead. But I want to unpack this a little bit further because one of the reasons why AI is an incomplete solution for a very big problem that we have in society. So let's just all agree that we are at a moment in time where people getting support for mental health issues. And when I use the word mental health, I'm not just talking about people struggling. Mental health includes learning how to be happy, learning how to manage your stress, learning how to be more resilient, learning how to have better relationships.

37:00And so it's a positive thing. and people are looking for help with it, which is a positive thing. Now, here's how I want everybody to think about AI. AI, I think about it like autocorrect. You know how you like are typing and then it tries and you're like, well, that's not what I wanted to say. AI is filling in the blank guessing based on the information you're feeding it and the information that's out there. And the problem when it comes to therapy, and there's some really, really good research on this. There was a study that was done at Stanford that I have in front of me. This is the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, where they first looked at what does it mean to be a great human therapist?

37:44You've got to be able to treat patients equally. You've got to show empathy, not stigmatize mental health concerns, not enable suicidal thoughts or delusions, and challenge a patient's thinking. Here's the problem with AI. AI tends to feed you validation, and it gives you answers, not options. And based on the prompts that people give, it's only searching the language, but it's taking no other cues like emotion, tone of voice, stress levels and responses that you can see, past history. Unless somebody actually gives you that, it's not taking any of that into consideration. And so I want to talk about something that's positive before we kind of jump into the fact that what's needed here is regulation.

38:26There was a study from my alma mater, Dartmouth, okay, that came out literally just a couple months ago. It was published in March. And Dartmouth researchers conducted the first ever clinical trial of generative AI-powered therapy. And they found, and this is important, that people that were diagnosed with depression experienced a 51 % average reduction in symptoms using generative AI and a therapeutic model. All right. Okay. So leading to clinically significant improvements in mood and overall well-being. If you had generalized anxiety, it reported an average reduction in symptoms of 31%. However, here's the thing that they said.

39:06The problem is it's okay if it is supervised by a human being. When it's not. When it's not, AI is fundamentally not able to work autonomously. And the problem is without regulation, and again, let's applaud the state of Illinois for caring more about the people rather than the unmitigated profits that companies that are using AI are allowed to create. that without any kind of regulations, companies are not going to do this, period. No, of course not. Of course not. Yeah. They didn't fix social media. They didn't put safety in place. Not only did they not fix it, but when they saw that it was damaging kids' mental health, they doubled down on the algorithms.

39:54So we've seen this with big tobacco. We've seen this with social media. Let's not be idiots, okay? Let's let them give us the platitudes and the like empty promises. We're here to solve cancer. Yeah, whatever. Okay, you know, you're here to make profits because you're a public company. And you now don't have to regulate a report to anybody. And so let me, this is the part where we have to go, no, no, no, we've got to pressure the people that are paying attention in states where they are. So what guardrails would you like to see in place? Oh, I want to see tremendous regulation. You see that as, the money they have is, the money they bring to bear is massive.

40:31They're standing next to Trump on the podium there. There has to be like an example of a guardrail. Well, a guardrail, a very good one is what happened in Illinois. That's a very good one because you're now putting a stake in the ground to saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like people matter. And we can't just put something out here that isn't actually helping people and that has oversight. Right. Like this is why we have consumer safety laws. Correct. And yet they don't seem to apply to something that is not being regulated. It would apply to a cigarette. It would apply to chemicals. It would apply.

41:05Because people matter. Right. People matter more than the profits of a company. At least they used to. And so I want to say that there's something very promising. But what they concluded in the study at Dartmouth is that while the results are promising, no generative AI agent is ready to operate fully autonomously in mental health. because there is such a very wide range of high-risk scenarios that can occur. And so here's another example. I would love to have an x-ray done and have it like scanned by AI, but I want a doctor to look at it after the AI gives you its solutions. That's it. Because one of the things that also can happen is like AI is fantastic for administrative tasks, for other things, for communicating with people.

41:51But when you allow it to operate autonomously, now we get into massively dangerous situations. And it also tries to be pleasing. It tries to, you don't know what it's going to answer. It's not really. Well, because here's the other thing. It's not user generated, but it is at the same time. Well, and a lot of times the answer is wrong. Like the other day, if you did a search on me, you would see that I drive a Lamborghini and I'm divorced. And then I'm also, I've converted to Islam. How's that going for you? Well, none of it's true. I understand. But that's what people also don't understand. Oh, God, no.

42:22Pickup truck. And so I think it's important because we've also gotten to this point where you go to it and you think that it's right. And what's coming, everybody, is advertising. Absolutely. And when it goes to advertising, it means that the longer it keeps you on the platform, then the more money that people make. But that's always been. It's true, but people don't think about it. Yeah, but Walt Moffsburg, my partner for many years, for 20 years, nailed it right from the beginning. He said he called Mark Zuckerberg a rapacious information thief. Well, let's talk about that. Yes, so we're going to talk about the influx, the information influx, about it without overwhelming you.

43:07First of all, how do you, when you use generative AI or deal with the influx of news that overwhelms you, some of which is true. I don't deal with an influx of news. You don't. What do you do? Well, I'll tell you why. Because I understanding... But if you want to stay informed without feeling overwhelmed. Yeah, of course. So, you know, this is a very simple thing. Like, think about input versus output. And what are you allowing into your mind? It's that simple. Do you trust the voices? Like food, you're talking about. It's just, well, I'm talking about information. Right, but it's like food. Just like food.

43:40Twinkie, twinkie, twinkie. Yes. So, are you allowed... Garbage in, garbage out. Which is a computer term. Yes. And so if you are serious about your stress and your peace and your success in life and your health, you will get very serious about what you allow in to your mind. You have control, a lot more control than you believe. Though some might argue some of it's addictive, but go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, it is. It is. Absolutely. So, you know, cocaine's addictive. I don't sleep next to an eight ball. You don't? Not in your Lamborghini? No. No. And I'm kind of, you know, I'm being like punchy about this, but like stop blaming the phone and actually recognize that the phone is a tool.

44:25What's on it is addictive. But if you know it's addictive, then adjust your behavior so that you don't become the tool. Right. So when you, how do you stay informed, though, and not check out? Because one of the things is just being completely passive. especially and the fact that doom scrolling is rather enjoyable in some fashion. Well, that's why we do it. Yeah. You know, what's interesting about doom scrolling is it actually, you know, the research is very interesting around this is that it is a lot like pulling a slot machine. There's a very like kind of seductive trance-like thing of just pulling that slot machine.

45:04And that's also why we do it. Another reason why we do it is because all day long, we feel like our time and energy has been hijacked by work, by other people's drama, by the stress of life, by the headlines that when you get home and you plop on the couch, there's almost like this fuck you experience that you have. You're like, I'm just going to take back my life by spending three hours doing nothing. We all do it. And so understanding that and that you're going to fall into that trap every once in a while, which, by the way, when you're also stressed. You tend to do. Oh, way more. The research is very clear.

45:35Lots of dopamine. That when you're very stressed out or even remotely stressed out, that you are way more susceptible to these cheap dopamine hits. And yes, the phone, not the phone itself, but the stuff on the phone is designed to keep you on it because the longer that you give your attention to it, the more money people make. And the more it gives you things. You had Tristan Harris just talked about this for a long time. But so the thing I want to just say, though, is you have more power than you think. So give people practices because they don't think they do. because there is the element of addiction is massive here.

46:08Much more. And one of the things I always say is, one, it's addictive. Two, you need it for work. Yeah, but stop blaming work for the reason why it's always in your hand. I get it, but it's hard not to be digital. It's impossible. Well, I'm not saying don't be a monk and live in the mountains. What I'm saying is develop some fucking boundaries. So talk about that. Here's a great way to start. The next time you're standing in line, don't reach for your phone. Difficult. Yeah. Don't reach for your phone. Three lousy minutes. Don't reach for your phone. Feel the tension. Don't reach for your phone.

46:41Did you see that? There was an article in Atlantic thing, what things we did before the internet. And someone was, I read it, and then a lot of people were commenting, they said, what did you do? I said, everything. We did everything. Like, I don't know, but we did. Like, it was fine. But it starts with you. Like, literally, stand in line. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Don't reach for your phone. And as people start pissing you off, let them. And let me just stand here and take a deep breath and just be in this moment. Boredom. That's what you're talking about. Or presence. Like presence. And just create a pocket between you and this lie you're telling yourself that you need to be constantly attached to everything.

47:26No music? No. Why? Like, fine, if you want to listen to music. But I just, fine if you're listening to a podcast. but if you're reflexively, mindlessly reaching for your phone, train yourself not to. Here's another one. Another one to do is when I am done working, this has changed my life, because I used to be guilty of, you know, I'd come to us, you have four kids, I have three kids. I would literally be on my phone for work, and then I would shut it down, and now I'm ready. And then everybody else is on their phones, and now I'm yelling at everybody else to get off their phones. It starts with you.

48:02This is the dumbest thing. And again, one of the criticisms that I get for my work is, well, it's so simple. I'm like, it's not simple to most of us, okay? Yes, right. Is that how they say it? Yeah, kind of like, yeah. Can you do that again? It's so simple. Oh, well, Robin, shit is so simple. I'm like, well, only to the intellectuals does it seem simple. To the rest of us idiots, like, this stuff is pretty difficult. But I set up a charging station in the kitchen. This is the dumbest thing. I started to realize that in moments I want to be in person, I have to have my phone off my person. And I started to train myself to put my phone off my body when I was coming downstairs and it's time for dinner or whatever.

48:40And it has changed my life because I reflexively reach for it without realizing it when it's on me. Right. And when it's off you and you start to train yourself again, it goes back to that line in the grocery store where you literally just build this little pocket of peace and presence. Now you're building you're taking that pocket and you're putting that pocket of peace and presence into your life in your home. And what's super cool is there's a lot of research about this. I think it's the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Vienna did these studies about the parental phone use and its impact on kids.

49:18Completely. That's the problem. Yes. Because everyone's got the problem. Well, the more you're on your phone, the more your kids are. And the more you feel that your kids' behavior is out of control, guess what? The more yours is. Correct. I always think the people 30 to 50 are the problem. But here's the good news. The good news is it also starts with you because the more you have balance and boundaries and the more present you are, the more your kids become. So another great thing that you can do is we have a rule that if we are sitting down for dinner, and it's only dinner, not breakfast. Don't do this at breakfast.

49:57It will not work. At dinner, no phones. Not on your body, not on the table. And it has, we've been doing this for probably 10 years in our household, and it has changed our life. There's a lot of research about having just one family dinner a week and how it just impacts your health and your happiness and your connection. Almost five days a week. Yeah. And we play this game, High Low. It's a camp game. What's the high of the day? What's the low of the game? And at first, you're going to be a stupid game. Rose and Thorn. Yeah, Rose and Thorn and Bud. Yes. And so you can do those kinds of things.

50:30And now what are you doing? You're building a pocket for your family of peace and connection. I also, like Dr. Tama Bryant, I don't know if you've had her on the, I think she's the current president of the American Psychiatric or Psychology, and she's a professor at Pepperdine. She basically had this statement when I interviewed her on our podcast that was like, I really want you to question why you think it's relaxing to watch horror or crime. Correct. I don't watch it anymore. At night. No, I don't watch them. She's like, that is an indication of trauma. I'm watching Gilded Age. Yes. Anything, like, silly is the thing I will watch.

51:07By the way, Hunting Wives. Hunting Wives? Okay, I'm going to take it. I live in Vermont. I'm going to take a look at it. MAGA Christian Trumpers that suddenly take a turn toward lesbianism. It's fantastic. Wow. Inexplicably, but it works. It's fantastic. Besides from that, one of the things I interviewed, the guy who created Adolescence, which was this Netflix special, which is a lot less traumatic than I thought, which I thought was in it because it was so well done. And then the woman who did social studies, which was she followed kids around. They gave her access to all their social media. And one of the things both of them took away from was the need for the kids wanted them removed from their lives.

51:47Yes. That the kids were happier without it, which was. Well, part of the problem, and here's the thing is that. So our son, for his senior project in high school, did this big six-month-long research study at his public school for the principal headmaster person. And conclusively, what all the students said is they wish everybody weren't on their phones as much, but the problem is the social pressure. And, you know, here's another, like, big switch for me as a parent is that I was super judgy. I'm like, you know, you guys are all idiots. You're spending all this time online doing dumb stuff on social media.

52:23The truth is, like, when you see the phone with your kids, I want you to see their two closest friends because that's what it represents to them. And there's a tremendous amount of social pressure that I didn't understand that our kids are under. And again, because I was like missed change and control until I was like, okay, let me be with you. How do you feel about your phone news? What are you actually using it for? Why do you feel the need to sleep with this thing, which I don't allow in our house? And that is another boundary, by the way, is do not sleep with your phone. Massive study came out, University of Southern Florida, recent study looking at 11 to 13-year-olds.

52:57they did find positives around phone and the ability to connect with friends because from a you know social standpoint and a biological standpoint that's the age where you start to separate and you want to one out of four 11 to 13 year olds are sleeping with the phone in their hand no it is the single most damaging thing that a child could do because of the disruption to sleep and the cascading effect that the disruption of sleep has on learning. On everything. On everything. Yep. And I completely had a menopause moment and forgot where I was going with this. That's okay. I like it. It's fine.

53:36Oh, so our son Oakley did this. Is that your next book, Menopause Moment? No, I'm not. I don't know that I'll write another book. Really? Yeah, yeah. Because when you have something this, like, this is an unprecedented moment. First of all, I'm so excited that people are excited about a book. You're not doing the sequel, Let Them Eat Cake or anything like that? No, no. Because, you know, I'm excited people are interested in reading. You should do a book called Eat Cake and then put them right next to each other. Eat cake. I'm telling you. No, I know. I'm not doing it. You want to know why? I know the paradox of choice, dude.

54:13Okay. I know all that research where you overwhelm people with choices. Nope. That's a cute idea. I'm not doing it. I'm not going to fall for, like, the temptation to do more. I know that, like, you— You said your piece. I said my piece. You said your piece. Yeah, I feel like this is my legacy. This is said your piece. I like you said your piece. Now you're moving on. Oh, back to Oakley. So he did this huge project, and basically, conclusively, all the students were like, I'd love to be off this more, but everybody's on it. Yeah. And so the school ended up adopting a policy where they take the phones at the beginning of class and just dump them in a basket.

54:46Right. Because one of the biggest reasons why it's hard for states to legislate this or school districts to is the parents are pains in the asses. That's right. They are. You do not need to be in touch with your children. You do not. That is a major problem. I had a huge argument with a parent about this. And I said, you know what we did before? We went to the office. Yes. Somehow we didn't die. Yes. Somehow. And then they brought in school shootings. I'm like, you need to stop. Yes. You need to stop. Right now. Right. They don't need to text you during a school shooting. Well, by the way, if they're in the middle of a school shooting.

55:11They should be running. You want them to be focused on running and hiding. Correct. Yeah. All right. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about mankeeping.

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56:56Mel, we're back. It's time to talk about mankeeping. A recent piece in New York Times explores the term coined by postdoctoral fellow at Stanford, Angelica Puzio-Ferrara. It refers to a growing emotional burden women feel in relationships because the straight men tend only to open up to their wives or girlfriends. It's driven by a topic we tend to talk a lot about on the show. A 2021 survey from the Survey Center of American Life found that 15 % of men said they didn't have any close friends. How would you suggest a woman in a relationship experiencing man keeping? I have Scott Galloway, who I have to keep.

57:29Let him. Let him. That is the cold. We'll go to this next. You know why the show's popular? I let him. That is exactly why. Oh, I don't know. I've seen the comments. Oh, I don't let him. Some of your female listeners are getting tired of it. Of him? I know that, but then they come up to me. I know, but people listen to people that irritate them. Yes, that's exactly right. But they do come up to me. They like the struggle. So I don't read comments ever, speaking of which. I never do. I don't know why. That's smart. It's just one of my things. I only do it when I'm preparing to come on a show. Oh, do you?

57:56Okay. Yes. So thank you for telling me about it, though, but I'm still going to not listen to them. Let them complain in the comments. Because you know what? You can't control what other people think. That's right. Good for you. Yeah. I have a lot of people do. Like, how can you put up with it? I'm like, yeah, it's none of your business. It's none of your beeswax. So talk about this man-keep. How do women are experienced in man-keeping? And talk about the boundaries around that, because I think dating has definitely, for some reason, become harder. And what advice do you have for men? Well, I thought that this was a very interesting article because it was very polarizing.

58:27All the women were like, finally! Like, somebody's saying something! And all the guys were like, excuse me, this is a very broad voice. Yes. You know, like broad brush. This is reductive. Yeah, give me a break. So again, I'm one of these people that likes to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. And there is a major issue going on when it comes to men and their ability to express and understand their emotions and their ability to connect and their ability to ask for help. And, you know, interestingly, just next week, we have this episode airing with Jason Wilson, this New York Times bestselling author who does incredible work in Detroit with young men and emotional resilience.

59:08He's incredible. And it's the episodes like the reason why boys and men are quietly struggling and how to support them. So let's just take it for a fact that men are struggling. And Jason Wilson's analogy is women tend to have a emotional depth or at least awareness that is broader than most men. And there's a bazillion factors, whether it is the socialization of boys, whether it is gender stereotypes, whether it is the framework of a lot of male friendships, which I'm going to get into because I think this tracks back to the nature of friendship for young boys versus girls. And then what changes when you become an adult.

59:48But he basically says women like have that like 64 crayon box that they're dealing with and dudes have like the eight. Right. And that's an issue because if you don't know the deeper issue that you're dealing with, you're going to always reach for anger or sadness. And typically, if somebody is expressing anger or sadness, there's a lot of other deeper emotions going on that people don't know how to talk about. But so often shame, but go ahead. Yeah, often shame. And, you know, if you don't know the difference between the two, you know, guilt is when I did something bad and shame is when you say I'm bad because of what I did.

1:00:20And so blaming men for this doesn't actually solve the bigger problem. And I think the bigger problem starts a lot earlier. Like if you look at all the research around friendship, boys tend to create friendships in groups. Girls tend to have closer relationships one on one. A lot of men tend to make their friends based on teams and based on groups that are organized for them. And when they graduate from high school or for college, they end up going to the next team, which is work. And now we're in a situation where we have hybrid work. We're in a situation where people are very disconnected. Right.

1:00:53And you have a situation where guys have defaulted to needing groups to be organized in order to feel like you have relationships with other people. Yep. It's so interesting. My daughter has individual friends and my sons have the boys. Yes. Which is really interesting. Here's the boys. Yes, exactly. And so when you get into a heterosexual relationship, you are now in a relationship with somebody who is used to connecting one-on-one. And so you are probably, in a lot of cases, training this person for the first time in some of the deeper nuances of your emotional or inner life. And so I don't think it's a bad thing that you might be in a relationship with somebody that leans on you and that needs your support.

1:01:38But I do think it is a bad thing if you are not effective in getting your person to be more proactive with friendship and to be more proactive. Outside of the relationship. Oh, hell yes. Hell yes. And, you know, I write about this in the Let Them Theory. And it's a really helpful framework that makes you really think about friendship differently. Mm-hmm. Most of us don't understand friendship. Mm-hmm. And friendship, once I explain this to you, you'll be like, oh, my God. So simple, Mel. Yeah, it's so simple. Like, what the fuck? Well, we all know. So for your whole life, the conditions for friendship from zero to 20 were there.

1:02:18Uh-huh. Because you were with people your age all the time. Right. And you were doing the same things all the time. And you had the same milestones. Mm-hmm. Celebrated birthdays, graduations, same vacation schedules, all of it. Right. When you hit 20, all of a sudden, the great scattering, as I call it, happens. And everybody scatters in different directions. And then the only thing that's holding your old friends together is a group text chain that gets kind of dwindles to less and less and less as people start to jump into their lives. And then we start to say, I have no friends, which is not true.

1:02:48And so let me tell you the three pillars based on research that need to be present to create friendship. And I want people to understand this because when you see the pillars, you can support people in your life, whether it's young boys or young men or your partner, in understanding what it's going to take to create these relationships that matter. So number one, you have to have proximity. Proximity is the single most important condition for friendship. There was research at the University of Kansas that was done about friendship. And I'm going to probably get the facts or the actual digits wrong, but I'm going to be in the right range.

1:03:22in order to have a casual friend you need to spend almost 80 hours with somebody in order to have a super close friend over 200 hours right and the proximity creates the condition so you know like whatever yes other school parents other school parents seeing them on the sidelines in class sitting next to people at work you used to have a lot of friends at work right because you spent so much time with them so that brings me to the second condition that needs to be present for good friendship to happen. And that is timing. So timing means, are we in the same time of our lives? Are we both raising kids?

1:03:58Are we around the same age? Are we interested in the same things? This explains why you can spend 50 to 60 hours a week with people at work and really love them. And they're awesome. But you're not best friends. Because you may be in your 20s until you go out and get wasted. And then you're puking in a garbage can on Sunday night. And then Monday morning, it's like, hey, what'd you do? Oh, I went to a soccer game with my kids. You're in different timing of life. So there's only so much depth. Third condition for friendship, energy. Energy is just about whether or not there's a fit or not. And I've come to believe it has a lot more to do about what your priorities are.

1:04:34This is why you can be super close friends with people. But if you decide to stop drinking, all of a sudden you're not that close because the energy shifts. Right. Now, here's the most important thing. The reason why it's important to understand that it's about proximity, it's about timing, and it's about energy is that when friendships naturally come and go, it doesn't mean anything's wrong. Right. It's actually good. I agree. You got to let them. Let them come and go. And the mistake that people make is they start to say, I have no friends. That's not true. people come and go in your life and it's a beautiful thing and at any moment you can decide that friendship is important to you and make it a part yes and you know every time in your life that you move or you go through a divorce or you have any major job change you're going to experience a little scattering of friendship because proximity will change and so will the timing and so will energy like for example my husband and I moved to southern Vermont when we were in our 50s.

1:05:35And it was shocking to move to a new place and literally go, oh my God, I have no friends here. Right. I got to start all over. And you feel like that first week in college where it feels like everybody has got their group and you're the only idiot sitting alone, you know, in the cafeteria and you don't want to be that cringy person that goes up to other people. What did you do? What did I do? Well, first I cried and stayed alone in my house for six months. Oh, wow. And literally was like, why are we even weird? That's the worst thing. you know, this is why I'm so good at giving advice because I fuck up my life all the time.

1:06:08And I find myself in these situations where I'm like, okay, well, nobody's going to magically parachute out of the sky and fix my life. No one's coming. I'm either going to suffer in misery or I'm going to fucking fix this. And again, let's go back to some of the things we talked about. The brain, Dr. K, defaults to what's easy. Being miserable and crying is easy. And at some point, you'll get to a point where you're like, it's actually harder to stay in here and sit with myself than to push my ass out the door and to go to that local coffee shop. You have to make a thing. When I moved to California from DC, I had a wonderful social life in DC, friends, everything else.

1:06:42And I moved to California to cover the nascent internet industry. I didn't know anyone. And I just broke up with someone too. So it was just like, and I spent a couple months like crying in a rainy San Francisco house. And I remember when spring came, I'm going to say yes to everything. Even this smallest little thing. And it changed everything. Yeah, it does. I started honest to God by just going to the coffee shop. And then instead of sitting there alone, I forced myself to start turning and talking to people in a line instead of looking at my phone. I come here, oh, I like your socks. Just complimenting somebody is a great way.

1:07:18Yeah, love bombing. Yeah, to just strike up a car, turn and talk to the people next to you just it's a way to start to come out of your shell actually longevity depends on talking to strangers it's really yes are you going to talk about the warm like connection like the sky like so here's the thing we under value the foundational importance of what they they call them something like cold relationships but it's i i like to call them warm relationships these are the barista at the coffee shop this is the person that you see at the dog part. Stopping and talking to folks, learning their names. And here's a great hack.

1:07:56So for your favorite coffee shop or the place that you go a lot, your restaurants, whatever, the gym, create a contact listing. Put in the coffee shop name. In the notes section. Put their names. With a description. Beard and glasses makes a great cup of coffee. His name is Kevin. And then you're going to learn that his dog is Ollie. And then before you go into the coffee shop. You look at it. Yes. And then you can walk in and you're like, hey, Kevin, how you doing? It's Mel. And you start to build this framework that actually matters because you start to feel seen and you start to feel like there is a small community.

1:08:34And from there, you loosen up and start to. And they don't have to be your friends. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And it actually, there's so many studies now. As I told you, I'm working on this longevity series. Talking to people you've never. There's a group called Time Spent that puts together six people. It's got 100 ,000 people across the globe doing this. You've never met. You meet six people. They just put you together, and you spend the evening with them. And every study shows this is like one of the – everyone's like, what can you do about longevity? Should you do shrimp semen? You should do this.

1:09:08I'm like – Shrimp semen? You know what I mean? You know what I mean? I know, but I'm like, well, ew. Like I'm digging the vein out of the back of that thing before I eat it. Shrimp semen? Apparently. Anyway, that said, the biggest thing is community and meeting people you don't know and establishing. It's fascinating. Well, you know. Actual links to longevity with that. Of course. Like, it's not, like, in life. Yes. It's not about the destination or the journey. Right. It's about the company. Oh, I knew you were going to say that. So, one personal question. How do I learn to let Scott? Do you have to?

1:09:41No. Just kidding. Apparently not. What is it about Scott that you need to learn to accept? No, I don't. I do let him. I actually, interestingly enough, it's the first relationship. Often with men like Scott, sometimes when they were sort of narcissistic or pushed on things, I would try to stop them. And I think Scott's been the greatest success because I do let him. And I think it gives people permission not to fight with people so much, to be able to disagree and be okay with it. And not just be civil, but be friends with people you disagree with. And it gives people permission to laugh a little bit.

1:10:14Well, I want you to imagine something. So one of the reasons why the let them theory is so important, particularly in this polarized world, is that we all have a complete intolerance of an opposing point of view. And the only way, and this is, again, very research based. I'll give you kind of a visual to think about. Because the only way that you are actually going to influence somebody else's opinion is if you give them the space to first share theirs and to feel understood. So I want you to imagine that you've got two glasses, and one glass is filled with red water, and one glass is filled with blue water.

1:10:56And these represent two people that have two very different points of view about life. What we do in life when somebody starts to go off or act in a way that we don't like is instead of like when they start to go off and act in a way, imagine that red glass is tipping over and they're pouring all of it out of their brain. The second you react, respond, like disagree, bitch, ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, like what that is actually is it's as if you've taken your glass of blue water and tried to pour it on top of the red. There's no room in the brain to hear it. They have to first feel as though you have listened and heard what they've had to say.

1:11:35And so I think a lot about the fact that the saying let them forces me to stop just getting so pissed off. Or getting your digs in. Or getting my digs in and just let them pour it out. It's sort of like somebody puking. Like if somebody's puking, you don't stand in front of them. They don't stand in front of them. You stand to the side. You stand far away. Yeah. You hold their hair. They've got long hair. You rub their back. Is there anything else? Maybe. Anything else? Yeah. Yeah. You know, let it come out. Yeah. And then somebody is able to hear you. Right. But we have to build this tolerance of being able to let people be who they are and have their opinions.

1:12:16And then let me be more effective at understanding what I think I hear. And then saying something. But I want to give you a framework. Okay. To use with Scott. This comes from Charles Dewey. Like, Pulitzer Prize winning. I know Charles. Yeah, Charles is fantastic. So he has this three-part framework. He basically says people are only ever having three different conversations, right? They're having a practical one, which is really like, okay, I have a goal. Let's find a solution. They're having an emotional one where they're venting. And what's the goal of an emotional conversation? I want empathy.

1:12:47Kara, I want you to validate me. Or they're having a social one. They just want acknowledgement. And I think often listening to you guys, Scott is having an emotional or social conversation, and you're trying to have a practical one. And one of the things that have changed my parenting is I've literally adopted this phrase that is, do you want me to listen? Or would you like my advice? And nine times out of ten, people just want you to listen. Another thing that you could say to Scott that I love, because when he does things that are just like, oh, my God. Like when you opened up the show where he was in his apartment and he made that joke about how like the last time a woman was here, you know.

1:13:27$60. Yes, exactly. You can just say, dude, that is below a standard for my response. Or you can also say, could you repeat that? Yeah. Oh, I like that. The first one I think is priggy. The first one is priggy. But in the pause, could you repeat that? Yeah. He's going to be like, I didn't mean that. Yeah. But the pause and asking somebody to repeat it forces them to reflect. on what just happened. You can also say, did you actually mean to be offensive? No, no, that sounds priggy. That's being San Francisco. Well, see, there you go. You can do it. But it depends on the person and how you want to solve it.

1:14:04But I love that. Pause and just be like, could you repeat that? What? Huh? I was just kidding. You know what I do sometimes, though, when people are acting badly? I go, is that the wind? Like I pretend I never heard it in the first one. Or just not acknowledge it in any way. It's often very effective. Yeah. You know? Is that the wind is my favorite expression. I used to do it with my kids when they were being really bad. And they're like my one son. The other day I did it with my three-year-old. He was being really mean to his sister. And I said, Claire, just say, is that the wind? Is that the wind?

1:14:34Because he was trying to hurt her. See, the only problem with doing that in our family is that that's a cover for a fart. All right. Now we'll take one more quick break. And thank you for the advice. We'll be back for Wins and Fails.

1:14:58Mel, we're back. Let's hear some wins or fails. Would you like me to go first? You go first. Okay. A fail. Tim Cook. It's not a fail. It's a win for him. Apple is trying to stay in Trump's good graces, investing an additional$100 billion in U.S. jobs and suppliers, bringing a total of$600 billion over four years. Although if you look at the last time, they didn't end up spending that. This is basically a press release. and it includes a$2.5 billion Kentucky-based Corning, which they're already there. So glass in the iPhones and watch what made in the USA, but not iPhones, but they've already been doing that.

1:15:30So they're doing a lot of things for Trump's benefit. And in doing so, he was in the Oval Office announcing the New Deal and he presented Trump with this plaque that was a piece of this Corning glass along with a gold stand. And I just thought, here's one of the good guys doing this. And he is a decent fellow, I have to say. But it reminds you that everything is for the shareholders no matter what. Profits over people. Profits over people. Even someone who's a relatively decent fellow like Tim Cook, you don't have to be an Elon must to do something that's a real fail. And so that's where we are right now.

1:16:05If people like this do this, you know where we are. And it works because giving him a little gold statue makes him feel better. I think my win is I love South Park. Done it again. I just, they're so good. And sometimes I don't like some of the stuff they do, but I got to say, really funny. They don't suffer fools. They brought the latest episode. They had already done the Trump one that got everyone all hot and bothered. Right in the middle of a deal that the company did something really terrible in order to get the deal done. But they made J.D. Vance look like Tattoo from Fantasy Island. I'm old enough to remember Fantasy Island.

1:16:42Oh, the plane, the plane. I can't do that one. I know, the plane, boss. That sure used to scare the shit out of me. Go back and watch it. Some of them stay okay. That one, you're really like, oh, my God. The show poked fun at Homeland Security. Had Kristi Noem with a running gag of her face continually melting. And she keeps shooting puppies, obviously. And I just, they went there. And I like when people do that. And that's what satire is for. And it can seem mean. But whoever's in power, I really like when this is what you use your satirical talents for. I thought it was really great. So those are my wins and fails.

1:17:15So my fail is this recent case that the federal court handed down in San Francisco. Oh, the lawyer's coming back. Well, no, this really pisses me off, honestly. All right. Where they ruled in favor of AI companies having the legal right to upload copyrighted material into large language modeled things. And let me just explain what this means. If you write a book, somebody can go and buy your book for$25 and upload the entire transcript into AI and use it with unfettered access or any citation to you or any link out to you or anything to you. And this is the single biggest raid, I think, of intellectual property.

1:18:03And there are lots of authors that are bringing lawsuits. They brought one. Tony Robbins's. Yep, Tony Robbins is. And, you know, what is a huge fail, and again, we're kind of touching on something we already talked about, is the lack of regulation. To put this in perspective, every single day, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of AI-generated fake shit of me online. I had the same half of my book come out at Amazon. Yes, and here's the problem. I, and I'm not whining, this is an occupational hazard. I am concerned as a lawyer and a citizen because I have 38 million followers and one of the largest podcasts in the world.

1:18:40You do. I cannot get the platforms to take this shit down. Right. And if I can't do it, how the hell is the average? They're stealing your stuff. It's not even stealing my stuff. They are stealing my face and my voice and putting a fake mouth on it. And they could create male AI? Oh, they already do. There are things with me out there saying all kinds of inflammatory stuff about Pakistan, and I can't get it taken down. And if I can't do that, what's going to happen to the average person who is having their identity stolen, who is having this happen to them? What is happening to the independent artists that can't afford a lawyer who's having their work ripped off?

1:19:21Our podcast, my audio book got uploaded to an AI bot and they generated a fake version of it with two AI bots reading the audio book. And under this case law, the fair use doctrine and derivative works, they have a claim that it generated by AI with fake AI robot voices that that is now protected because it's derivative of what I did. Now, here's the problem that I have. You can upload it to Spotify, which they did. It started ranking in the top 10 podcasts in the world, marketed as my audiobook. It took me three months to get them to remove it. Three months. And I have the means to get it removed.

1:20:03Why? Well, because there's no regulation. And there's no requirement. And this is why we're failing. There needs to be a requirement that something that is either generated by or spoken by AI is labeled as such. Because I will compete against a robot. But I'd like to know that it's a robot. As a consumer, I would like to know if I'm listening to your voice or if I'm listening to something that somewhere in some room overseas created in some den, an AI version. They also get money. Of course. Savannah Guthrie wrote a book about her religion, and some AI made a workbook, and her mother bought it, thinking it was her workbook on how to do this.

1:20:43And so the lack of the requirement of labeling, I think a lot of consumers would go, well, I don't want to listen. I don't want to read that news if AI wrote it. I'd rather read the news by this journalist that I trust. This is why so many people are going to Substack. So I think it's a huge fail, this litigation. Like this is, to me. Do you want to create an AI version of yourself? No. No. Some people are doing it. Absolutely not. One version of me is enough. So I would like to stay married. We're going to be married for 29 years this year. I'd like to stay married. I feel like this case law is as big of a deal as Citizens United.

1:21:21Wow. I really do. Like, I believe Citizens United laid the foundation for the unraveling of democracy. Full stop. I believe this case law is 100 % setting a precedent that is really going to unravel copyrighted work and artistic work. and it's also setting a precedent for a lack of regulation, which from a consumer standpoint, I want to know. Don't you want to know? If a person made it? I've been railing about this forever. So that case law for me is a major loss. Here's a huge win. I think at the age of 60 and 56, you and I are fucking winning. To be competing on a global level. I'm 62. Yeah, I know you are.

1:22:03So you look incredible. Thank you. Once again. Thank you. You're welcome. I agree. That's the best response I have ever heard. Everybody, do you hear that? I want you to send this, that section right there. Send this to every woman and girl you have. When you compliment them, teach the women and girls in your life to say, I agree. Thank you. I agree. Thank you. You're right. You're correct. Amazing. Some guy came to me with something else. I did a work thing, and they're like, that was really good. I go, no, it was fucking fantastic. And they're like, well, that's egomaniacal. I said, you just said I was great.

1:22:30No, it's a fact. It's not ego. It's a fact. It's facts. Them's facts. But I feel in this day and age with all of the tech and the fact that in the podcasting, space. It's typically about either entertainment or, you know, kind of pop culture or spreading conspiracy theory for us at our age to have built a podcast that people actually turn to and trust. I think that means we are truly winning and I love doing it at our age. Yeah, it's like the popularity of Crohn's, you know. Remember that word, Crohn's? It's a word for old ladies. Crohn? I'd never heard that word. Oh my God, look it up. Is it because Crohn's disease you get it when year old no c-r-o-n-e-s crones is that how you spell crones i don't know i don't know i'm not as smart as you no you know what don't no mark twain said you may not it spell it takes a simple mind to spell a word one way and half the words i don't even know what they mean do your simple voice again that's so sad mel robbins so simple well you know everything she says is fairly simple why didn't you do it was i'd say why didn't you do it then one time years ago bill gates was in meeting with me and he was talking about the iPhone, which was the most beautiful, simple thing.

1:23:39iPod, actually. It was before that. And he goes, what is it? Just a hard drive and a white box. It's so trivial. And I said, it's so easy. Why didn't you do it? Well, it only seems simple when somebody does it. Correct. And that's the genius in it. It's very easy to make something complicated. It is extraordinarily difficult and takes a lot of rigor to distill complicated Complicated things into a simple thing that anybody can use and you can remember and share with somebody else. And that's what I do. And contrary to that, Steve Jobs said, it's hard to make complex things simple. It's easy to make simple things complex.

1:24:18And I was like, oh. I was like, Buddha. I didn't know. I was like, oh, my God, he's right. Once again. But it's true. Which you do. Mal, you're fantastic. Thank you. We love having you on here. It's really wonderful. You deserve all your success. At first, when I first heard you, I was like, no. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, she's right. She's fantastic. I didn't say, oh, she's very nice. Well, you know what? I don't want to be right. I'd like to be useful. No, that's what I mean. I think you hit on something, and it's not. It's actually got substance behind it and science, which you cited and stuff like that.

1:24:51And that's the key thing for a lot of people who give easy answers or seem like easy answers. You have the backup, which I really appreciate. Thank you. And that's all you have to do. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. I'll be back next week with another amazing co-host. I heard Rachel Maddow's coming. David Remnick's coming. We've got so many great people.

1:25:21But Mel, thank you so much. I love Scott Free August because I get to spend time with people like you. And I've had enough of him for a little while. I will read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Enderdot engineered this episode. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

1:26:00Thank you.