NYU Professor: Do This for 2 Weeks to Get Your Focus, Motivation, & Life Back

21:31Mel Robbins:Why is the internet a uniquely dangerous place for a young person to be wandering around unprotected? So it's kind of insane to put children with anonymous adults. I mean, imagine if there was some place where you could just drop your kids off and they're going to interact with all kinds of men who are wearing masks and we never know who they are. That's completely insane. But that's what happens on a lot of platforms, even Roblox. You know, Roblox is a virtual space where people wander around. They interact with other people. Some of them are men who want sex. So once you get into any of these platforms that allow communication among strangers, this is a sick thing to do to children.

22:08But it's common. We just accept it. It's just common. And where did all the sexual predators go? If you hang out at a park, people report you'll get arrested. So they all moved to Instagram and a few other platforms. So research done by Arturo Bejar was a Facebook employee. He was working for Instagram. And his daughter, his 15-year-old daughter, created an Instagram page because the two of them enjoyed restoring classic cars. And she kept getting hit on by men showing creepy things. 15-year-old girl, photographs of her fixing cars, like, she has to go through this? And so Arturo says, I wonder how common this is.

22:42And he's able to do research and he finds that 15 % of, I think it was 14 to 16 year old teens, and here boys and girls were getting it equally. He said 15 % of them get an inappropriate approach from a stranger every week.

22:58Mel Robbins:Every week? Every week. If you just look, in the past week, the question he asked was in the past week. This was around 2018, 2017. So this was eight years ago? Yeah. It was 15 %? Yes. His questions were, in the past week, has this happened to you? and one of them was an inappropriate approach from a stranger or it's made you feel uncomfortable, something like that. And so it is just ubiquitous. Of course, look, most men are very decent and would not harm a child, but if it's 5 % or whatever it is, some percent, these platforms give them free reign. And I should clarify, once your daughter gets on Instagram or TikTok, it's not just strange men who are going to be doing stuff.

23:33It's the boys in her class also. There's a book called American Girls. It's horrifying. I forget the author. But she goes through how boys use nude pics of their female classmates as currency. And the eighth grade boys, if they can get a pick of an eighth grade girl's breasts, they can then trade that to a high school boy who will get them beer. I mean, things like that, just that girls' bodies become currency and the degradation, the humiliation. So there's a degree of sex and degradation to life online where children are interacting with strangers and there's no rules and no one's accountable.

24:04So that's why my group says, we say very clearly in the book, no social media till 16.

24:08Mel Robbins:I find it really fascinating that you have two divergent things happening when it comes to parenting and modern society. On the other side of the coin, in real life, we've become so psycho overprotective that we're overprotecting our kids from real life experiences. Exactly. experiences. I want to read to you from page 90. American parents have lost so much trust in their fellow citizens and their own children that many now endorse the near total elimination of freedom from childhood. Now, this is a report that's over 10 years old and it's still stunning and it's way worse. And this reports from Pew Research Center.

24:57Mel Robbins:Parents on average say children should be at least 10 in order to play unsupervised in their own front yard. This was 10 years ago. People were saying, I don't want my kids playing alone in my own front yard, even if I'm in the kitchen. Yep. Holy cow. They say that kids should be 12 before they're allowed to stay alone in their own home, unsupervised for one hour. They should be 14, which is basically high school, before being allowed to go unsupervised to a public park. That's right. That's right. I can summarize the whole book by saying we have overprotected our children in the real world where they need a huge amount of experience unsupervised, and we have underprotected them online where there's a huge amount of threats and not a lot of benefit.

25:50We've denied kids the freedom to become tougher, stronger, more independent. We put them on computers instead because we thought, well, that's safe. They're on computers. Maybe they'll be like Steve Jobs. Maybe they'll, you know, start a company. Good, he's on a computer. And we didn't understand as the internet changed, we didn't understand that putting our kids on the internet exposes them to all kinds of terrible people and companies that want to addict them. While most people are focusing on the phones, the larger message that I want to bring to everyone is keep your eye on childhood. Don't focus on the phones.

26:20Keep your eye on childhood. What kind of childhood do you want for your child? Do you want a childhood that's going to prepare them for adulthood, that's going to give you a confident young person able to go off and travel, go get a job, go to college? Or do you want someone who's going to just spend their life keeping up with the memes on five different platforms?

26:39Mel Robbins:Dr. Height, I am hanging on every word. I'm so grateful that you're here. I don't want to take a pause. I want to keep going, but I want to give our sponsors a chance to shine. And I also want to give you a chance to share this episode with the people in your life that you love. And don't go anywhere. We have so much more to dig into. with Dr. Jonathan Haidt when we return, so stay with me.

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30:49Mel Robbins:welcome back it's your friend mel robbins today you and i are here with social psychologist dr jonathan height and we're learning about why everyone feels anxious right now so dr height let's talk about boys because we've talked specifically about the reasons why social media is psychologically devastating for girls especially ages 10 through 14 which is why your recommendation is no social media until 16. What is the impact on boys when you give them a smartphone too soon or they have access to social media too soon? So for boys, don't keep your eye on social media. For boys, keep your eye on anything that's like a stimulus response reward thing.

31:35So it starts with video games. And I remember my son, we had simple games on the iPhone. and I remember seeing addictions for him where he would get very irritated. If you took it away, he'd scream, he had to have it. If when you take something away, the kid is very upset, that's a definite sign of dopamine adaptation. That is, their brain has gotten accustomed to a lot of quick dopamines that when you take it away, now their brain is in a deficit state. It takes a couple of weeks to sort of get over that for the brain to restore itself.

32:06Mel Robbins:Okay, so just hover here for a second. So for boys, what you're teaching us so far is it's less about all of the stuff on social media. The bigger picture is when it comes to boys and brain development, the addictive nature of social media and short form content and all this stuff makes them super addicted to it. And then when you go to try to limit it, now you're going to get the outburst. Now you're going to get the issues. And that's a sign that you got a problem. That's right. Maybe a metaphor that would be helpful here is imagine a thousand, it's kind of a weird metaphor, let's try it. Imagine a thousand fishermen with big hooks, dropping their hooks down, and your boy is sitting there on the ocean floor.

32:50And all of these hooks are baited with the most amazing possible things, and they're all trying to get your boy to bite. And this is his entire childhood. It starts with the video games, and those are amazing, and there's so many coming at him on every possible surface. And it's the short videos and the memes. And then when it gets a little older, it's the porn. And then it's the sports betting. My God, states have legalized sports betting and kids are able to get around the age limits. But there's gambling in almost everything now. So for boys, it's open season on their dopamine system. Open season, companies are sending out fishing fleets to try to suck out all the dopamine.

33:29That's what you need to keep your eye on for boys.

33:30Mel Robbins:And what does it do psychologically to your son? Dopamine is the hormone of motivation. And what you want is slow dopamine. What you want, especially for boys, boys' outcomes are more variable than girls. Boys can be incredibly successful and they're overrepresented at that. And also among society's losers, they're way overrepresented in that. So boys, the outcome of their life is much less certain than it is for girls. If boys are able to apply themselves and work towards a long-term goal, they can be incredibly effective and successful in the world. And they often end up with a certain kind of ambition that you find more in boys than girls.

34:06But boys are also so easily lured into becoming lazy bums that never move out of the house. So if you're frustrated

34:13Mel Robbins:because your son is not launching or he's in the basement or he's dropped out of college or he's lost motivation or never sees his friends, there is a direct link. Yes, a direct link. Because, so think about it this way. We all have to learn how to do hard things. Children have to do hard things over and over again. If you present a child, with a path. Either you can do this really hard thing to get a candy bar, or you can just have the candy bar. Which do you want? I'll take the candy bar. So it used to be that you had to work to get things. So for example, the biggest project for me when I was in middle and high school was getting a girlfriend.

34:48You know, I'm not saying sixth grade, but you know, by ninth grade, it was painful to not have a, like, you know, because some boys had a girlfriend.

34:53Mel Robbins:So that was sort of a long-term project. And, you know, I would try to flirt a little bit and, you know, I didn't know what I was doing, but that's how you learn is by trying and failing, trying and failing. And then when you finally succeed, it's amazing. And yes, it's dopamine, but it's also a deep feeling of satisfaction. And so if boys have that over and over again, they struggle for something, they get it, they get the pleasure of success. That's how you make a man. Whereas if you always say, you have a choice, you can work hard or I'll just give you the reward. What you're going to end up with is a boy who's not really capable of doing much in the world.

35:28We talked about mental health and mental illness a lot here. But what I've discovered since the book came out is that that's actually not the biggest damage that this stuff has done to our kids. The biggest damage is the destruction of the human ability to pay attention, to focus, and to pursue goals. That is the destruction of what we call executive function, the ability to formulate plans, orchestrate what you need to do, keep it in mind, and pursue it. While all the while, your phone is saying, come look at memes, come look at videos. So if a boy has the ability to delay gratification, to keep his eye on the prize, he's going to be effective in this world.

36:04Women don't want a man who's nothing. They don't want a man who has no achievements. They don't want a man who's going nowhere. So a lot of our boys are basically consigned to unmarriageability because they've been damaged by this and they don't have the ability to really pursue long-term goals.

36:20Mel Robbins:I have never heard anybody explain it this way. I have heard lots of amazing researchers and experts talk about the crisis in men and in boys. And oftentimes, especially as a woman, and I have a husband who is in that field. He leads men's retreats. He's a death doula. He is about to finish his degree in spiritual psychology, deeply concerned about it. But it often feels like it's always been pitted as it's the rise of women and the empowerment of women. And what I'm hearing is so compelling. And so I want to make sure that I'm getting this right, Dr. Height. And I want to make sure as you're listening, that you're gaining this key and critical insight into what's actually happening, especially for boys and young men.

37:13Mel Robbins:When it comes to girls and the ways that social media has entered a central role in their life. It has replaced connection. It has made them perform. It has exposed them to hypersexuality. We see a direct causal link in a spike in anxiety, a spike in mental health disorders, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and eating disorders. Yes. With boys. The impact of all of the short form content and the dopamine and the addictive nature, gambling, the porn, gambling, the porn, all of it, that your boys, your brother, your sons, your spouse, your boyfriend have all been exposed to. It has a direct and causal link to destroying motivation, to imploding executive function, and to creating sort of almost like a depressive state of just not feeling engaged or excited by anything.

38:24That's right. That's perfect. Yeah, that's exactly the way that I would put it.

38:28Mel Robbins:That's terrifying. It is terrifying. And there's a big social class divide here. That is, as Richard Reeves has shown, he wrote the book of Boys and Men. If we look at wealthy families, educated, college educated, married couples, the girls are doing a little better than the boys in those families. They're anxious as hell, but they're... That's right. They're more anxious, but the boys and the girls are both finishing high school and they're generally going to college. But as we go down in social class, it's the boys that are really, really dropping off. So that in the bottom half, economically, we see a huge gap between boys and girls.

39:04And this is terrible for so many reasons. One of which, as I mentioned, is that girls generally don't want to marry down. They want to marry up. And the supply of young men who are worth marrying keeps shrinking and shrinking because so many of them are lured off the path of development into just quick, easy dopamine addictions. What do you do if you're listening to this and your heart is sinking and you see this in your brother or you see this in your boyfriend? Yeah. Yeah.

39:34Mel Robbins:And as you're learning about this, you also are going to go home and see them sitting on the couch scrolling through short form as they've got the game on. Yeah. And they're placing a bet. What do we do? Like, what's the first thing to do if you're concerned about a man who had this impact him or you are concerned about a young adult or a boy that you're starting to see? They don't want to do sports. They're kind of pulling out. They spend a lot of time in their room. No moral judgment. Let's understand what's happening here. And of course, it's very hard to even change yourself. It's very hard for a person to make New Year's resolutions, just say, I'm going to have better habits.

40:12It's even harder to change another person. So if it's just you trying to persuade this person to change, that is really, really hard. But there's a couple of things that can really help you. Okay. One is to have that person agree and be on your side. And so if you talk to them and see, do they see it as a problem or not? And most young people, they're very clear.

40:31Mel Robbins:What do you hear from young people? What do you hear from the boys and from the young men that when they hear that it's not their fault? Because I think that's a very empowering thing to hear that the lack of motivation, the lack of gusto, the lack of passion and direction, it's not your fault. You're not a loser. You were preyed upon. So what do you hear, Dr. Height, when you're in front of boys and when you're in front of these audiences about what boys and young men are saying, when the realization is, holy cow, this rotted my drive in executive function. What are they saying? I can tell you from the young men in my course at NYU is that in every class, there's a couple that are gaming addicts, especially that spend huge amounts of time on all of this stuff.

41:15One young man, he was spending 10 hours a day on video games and social media, 10 hours a day as a college student. He goes to classes and he's on, that's it, that's all he does. You've come to New York City to go to college and all you do is sit on your bed and

41:28Mel Robbins:scroll and play video games. And when in the course, when we get their digital habits right, start by moving it off your phone onto a computer and then possibly just deleting entirely, their lives open up. And I remember one young man, he got back five hours a day from electronic devices. He started working out, which he didn't do before. He had time to go out with friends, which he didn't do before. And in the course of going out with friends, he got up the guts to actually approach a girl in life, not on an app, and flirt with her and became his long-term girlfriend. And so his life completely turned around.

42:03This is a 19-year-old young man. Life completely turned around because he regained control of his attention, which also gives you back control of your time, which gives you a sense of agency because you're not always like, oh, I'm so rushed. I've got to do this and this and this and scroll through this and this and this. So I've seen many young men just their lives blossom.

42:23Mel Robbins:This makes so much sense, Dr. Height, now that you've laid this all out. And I have so many more things I want to ask you, but I have to hit the pause button so we can give our sponsors a chance to share a few words. And I want to give you a chance. Now, I'm going to ask you, share this episode. Let's be part of the positive wave of change. There is one person in your life who is constantly on their phone. The person that's been in five hours a day, just looking at short form, the friend who can't focus, the parent who feels like they're losing their kids. I think we all need this information and we need the resources and strategies to put ourselves back at the center of our lives.

43:07Mel Robbins:Send them this episode. I promise you, they're going to thank you for this. And don't go anywhere because we have so much more to learn from Dr. Jonathan Haidt when we return. And I promise you, you're going to thank yourself for being here when we do. Stay with me.

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46:56Mel Robbins:Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. And today you and I are here with Dr. Jonathan Haidt. He's explaining all of this extraordinary research about why we are so anxious right now. All right, Dr. Haidt, let's just jump right back in. Now, what do you want to say to the teenager or the middle schooler who's frustrated with their parents and feels like they're the only one. What did you want them to know, Dr. Haidt? Well, I would start by acknowledging the pain. I would start by acknowledging that none of us want to be left out, and especially at that age, that it is painful. So I would acknowledge that.

47:31And then I would also say that in the long run, other kids are going to look at you as the cool one because you're going to develop the skills and the confidence. You're going to learn how to do things in the world. You're going to retain a sense of focus and sharpness. So in the long run, things are going to be better for you.

47:47Mel Robbins:Well, sometimes the most loving thing that you can do is something that your kids hate you for in the moment. And that's the job of being a parent. That's right. The job of a parent is to work yourself out of a job. It's to create a self-governing, functional young adult. And even though it's painful, and I'm not coming here as the expert who did this all right. As I said, I did a really good job on social media. I did not do a very good job on general computers and watching videos on the computer. During COVID, everything was on the computers. So I know how hard it is. I can almost hear the person listening, copy link, text to brother, copy link, send a boyfriend, copy link, send a husband, copy link, send to my colleague that just got laid off.

48:35Mel Robbins:Because nobody has ever explained to me the way that you just did, the direct connection between social media apps, video games, short form content, five hours a day on average of being online and how it is destroying motivation, drive, executive functioning, confidence, and zest for life in young men. And so I think there is probably a million young men, I'm not kidding when I say that, who will be receiving this episode from mothers and sisters and girlfriends and colleagues and friends and fraternity brothers. And what do you want to say to the guy who has started to feel that sense that he's not himself, he's not exercising, he has trouble motivating at work, he's feeling like the world is moving forward and he's sitting still.

49:31Mel Robbins:What is possible when you embrace the truth that this isn't your fault, but there's something you can do? I would start with a conversation. I heard this episode I think it would be helpful to you. Do you want me to send it to you? So at least, because boys are very conscious of their status. And if someone is calling them a loser, and many of them know that they're losers in the sense that they're not accomplishing it. Well, of course, because you're sitting there and you see your friends excelling, or you used to play lacrosse, or you used to do this, or you're not able to hit the marks at work.

50:04Mel Robbins:And it's just like, and you're putting, and you just start to feel this sense That's right. That you're losing yourself. That's right. And I don't think anybody's going to copy, paste and go, hey, you're a loser. Listen to this. You know, you send it and you say, this is one of the most compelling interviews I've ever heard. This professor at NYU is going to explain something that I think you're going to resonate with. And I really hope you'll take a moment and listen to this, particularly around Minute XYZ. Yeah. Talk to me about the psychology of why you have to be a little bit, you've got to be manipulative or strategic.

50:41Mel Robbins:Yes, that's right. And your approach, very intentional, because you want to make an impact. And I think the best news here is it's not your fault. This was done to you. That's right. And there's something you can do about it. That's right. So as with any other addiction, sometimes people be defensive or in denial about it. Okay. But for the most part, they're going to be aware that they have a problem. and they're aware that other men are succeeding, other men are getting girlfriends, other men are driving fancy cars. And so it's very important that you enlist the man in wanting to change. Is there a vision of yourself in the future that you'd like to see or are you happy with the way things are now?

51:22And then also make it seem easy to change. It can be hard to change overall, but it's easy to take a few steps. And so - What are the first couple steps to take? The first couple steps to take might be, let's just get your sleep in order. How about, could we just do like everything gets shut off at 10 o 'clock? Try to put some structures in space and time. If you're going to take a drug away from an addict entirely, they're going to have withdrawal symptoms. It's going to be very difficult. But if you start saying, you know, okay, you know, you can take your drug, but, you know, not in these places and not in these times, it's not as threatening.

51:57If the young man sees this as a goal, that they actually want to get there, and then they take a step, what happens? Dopamine. Progress gives you a hit of dopamine. And it can become self-reinforcing. So if you ask them, just quit video games entirely or stop watching porn entirely. Yeah, that's too big a step. But enlist them, help them make small changes, take small steps, and social support. So it's hard to beat an addiction with nothing but if you can swap in a healthier habit, find another male friend who will play basketball with them once a week or go on a walk.

52:34Mel Robbins:Like if you played sports as a youngster, pick up league. That's right. That's what a lot of young men say is, and you see this in the books, young men will say, yeah, you know, I used to run. I used to play guitar. I used to do all these things, you know, and I want to do them again. I just end up playing video games instead. So boys are really activity motivated. Young boys and men are much more about doing things, action in the world. So find ways to entice them into that with their friends. Well, let's talk about the advice to those of us who blew it. So you have kids in high school who are addicted to social media, or you've been listening to this and you've seen your son withdraw or your daughter just have a spike in anxiety.

53:17Mel Robbins:You feel that this could have been done differently, but now it's too late. What do you want us to know if we feel just bad and panicked about the way that we handled it? So I'm not going to advocate if your kid's whole life is on social media, I'm not going to say, delete their account, take them off, because that would be really difficult for a lot of kids once they're deeply into it. But you can help them have much, much better habits. And remember that these apps, they expand like a gas to fill every available moment. That's how we get to five hours a day of social media use for kids is that it fills up every moment when it possibly can.

53:55So you can stop that. So no matter how addicted your kids are, you can certainly apply a new policy, you know, new rule, all screens out of the bedroom at 10 PM and you don't get it back until you're on your way to school or something like that. But put in limits so that, especially to protect your kids' sleep.

54:14Mel Robbins:Well, let's talk about the limits. So give Give me the specific concrete. If you were to run your household with proper boundaries, with devices, what are they? Yeah. Here's what I wish I did. Here's what I'd recommend. Starting if you have young kids, you can have a computer in a common space. You can have a TV in a common space. And then you just simply have a rule, no screens in the bedroom ever. Okay. So the screens are in common places, no screens in bedrooms. That's right. Rule number one. Rule number two is stories are good, but short form is bad. And so what I mean is we have to all understand this isn't like no screens, no TV.

54:56Understand that humans are storytelling animals. We have always told stories. We use stories to convey patterns to our kids. This is part of enculturation. All cultures use a lot of stories. So if you want to have movie night with your kid once or twice a week, that's a good thing. Like you should do that. That's a really good thing. They pay attention for a two-hour movie. Maybe you have to break it up over two days when the kids are young. But they pay attention to a story which transports you into a fictional space. There's something magical and good about that. When you get lost in a Harry Potter book, when you get lost in a movie, that's all good, okay?

55:32And a TV screen can be a good way to do that. So watching long videos with another person, a sibling, a friend, or a parent, with a regular schedule, meaning only on Friday and Sunday, whatever, like some regular schedule. So it's not like, mom, I'm bored. Can we put on the Incredibles? You know, it has to be very, very regular. This is when we do movie night.

55:54Mel Robbins:You know, one of the things that has really helped me, and I just offer this in case it might help you as you're listening, is I love the rule, because I like very concrete black and white things. I don't like things like you could do this. No, I love no phone in the bedroom. It gets put away at 10 o 'clock. You don't look at it again first thing in the morning until you're out the door or whatever. I also, it has made a huge difference in our family. We have no phones at the table, period. Not allowed. Not allowed on the table. Not even to look up something quick. Mom, I'm just looking up what you're talking about.

56:24No, that's right. That's what we do.

56:26Mel Robbins:And my husband is a big policer, no dual screens when we're watching TV, unless somebody walks in with a laptop and says, I can only watch with you guys if I can also send a couple emails. Making it that we try not to. It's better to just say, just send them and then come in. Yeah, that's right. Because then they'll spend two hours sending an email versus the two minutes it takes and then shutting the laptop. Exactly. But the other piece for me that's made a huge difference because, you know, we can talk all we want about kids, but it starts with you as the parent. I don't have my phone on my body.

56:57Good.

56:58Mel Robbins:And I notice that if I don't have it on my body, it's like sitting on my desk or somewhere in the office right now at home. It's always in the kitchen or in my bathroom and like, you know, on the sink area charging. If I don't have it in my body, I don't reach for it. Yeah, that's right. Can you say the rule about nighttime again? Yeah. So the rule about nighttime, no matter where you are, no matter how deeply your kids are into this, the rule has to be all devices out of the bedroom by 10 o 'clock or something or other, because that's where the worst stuff happens is overnight. So the boys, a lot of boys are developing porn addictions, and that's going to be a little more controlled if they don't have it overnight.

57:34That's where a lot of the really the worst stuff, the sexual predation happens is overnight.

57:38Mel Robbins:That is one rule we had. You were not allowed to have your phone in your bedroom overnight. And I would have to go in there and pull it out of their hands. Like you have to be the heavy in this regard. But what I also started to notice is that it really had been impacting our daughter's sleep because they felt as though they needed to be available in case a friend needed them in the middle of the night. And so there is this psychological pressure that your child may be feeling that they can then blame on you when they text whomever they were talking to and said, my mom's about to take my phone.

58:21Mel Robbins:I'll see you at school tomorrow. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And this is something that the kids themselves say. In fact, I just did a session with some middle school and high school kids a few days ago in New York. and when they were asked like, what advice you have for parents in the audience? One of them said, let your kids blame it on you. They specifically, this was an eighth grade boy. He specifically said, impose the rules and then your kid can say, well, I don't have it. I don't have Snapchat because my parents won't let me or I have to shut everything down at 9.30 because my parents make me.

58:48Like, let them blame it on you.

58:50Mel Robbins:So Dr. Height, you've done a wonderful job waking us up, teaching us, empowering us. And I'll speak for you personally, scaring me now that I see the dots all connected. Can you explain though the good news that is available to us now that we see the connection? What is possible particularly for men and women, boys and girls that have been impacted by this? So what I can assure listeners is that if you have any slot machine apps on your phone, if you have any apps that are sending you notifications and getting you to come back and scroll, if you just move them off your phone, for starters, just use it only on a computer or on an old iPad, if you get it off your phone, you'll be less addicted to your phone.

59:41And if you're less addicted to your phone and you turn it back into a tool, not a master of your life, you're going to find your consciousness sort of clearing and coming back. And so what I'm saying is, if you change your habits. You're going to change the things that are coming into your eyes and ears. And you're going to find that your attention is less fragmented. And when your attention starts coming together in larger pieces, then you can work more quickly and effectively with higher quality work. And then you have more time. And if you have more time, you feel less time pressure and you're less anxious.

1:00:12Mel Robbins:Do you have research that shows or proves that when you get control of your relationship with all these apps and social media, that mental health conditions get better. There is a body of experiments. They're called social media reduction experiments. A lot of researchers have said, we're gonna randomly assign people, 200 people reduce their social media use to an hour a day, 200, no change, and we see what happens. We found, I think about 35 of them by now. Those that go on for at least a week, ideally two or three, and that focus on mental health, on anxiety and depression, almost all of them find that the levels of those things go down if you're off for a week or two.

1:00:58Mel Robbins:That's how quickly this can turn around? That's right. Because think about dopamine. Your dopamine circuits will recover if you stop the stimulation. And if you start thinking, you start doing other things. But very important is that one of the groups that did this was Meta. We know from the leaks. We know from all the documents that have come out. They did an experiment. They called it Project Mercury, and it was Facebook users and Instagram users. This was around 2018, I think. And they randomly assigned them. They requested that they, I believe it was stop using, stop using it. And they just did it for one week.

1:01:31And they found that the people who got off, their mental health improved. Now, this was supposed to be a pilot study. They were going to do a much larger study. But once they found out, oops, oops, this looks bad, it looks like they never did the larger study. but we have their findings from that and they talk about it. And one of them says it looks like it's causal. This is not a correlation. This is causal evidence. So we know this very well. If you're addicted to something and you stop doing it for the first few days, it actually can be painful. But if you stick with it, within a week or two, your life comes back.

1:02:04I love that phrase, your life comes back.

1:02:08Mel Robbins:Because I think we all feel like we're losing. Yeah, there's a deadness. Our lives, there's a deadness. For somebody who feels very inspired and motivated by all this work and research and advocacy, is there a place that someone can go to get tools to advocate changes at their local school or to have guidance on how to talk within your own family about this? So if you want to take action, please go to anxiousgeneration.com. And at the website, we have a take action button. And then you can choose, are you a parent? Are you a teacher or educator? Are you a legislator? And so we have specific advice for all of them.

1:02:51Also, letgrow.org if you want to give your kids more of a real world childhood. Those are the two organizations that my team and I have created to help parents and teachers and everyone else give our kids back life in the real world.

1:03:05Mel Robbins:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Height, for providing all these resources. Thank you for this extraordinary book and for scaring the hell out of us. No, but also like it's important to know the truth. Yeah. Dr. Height, what are your parting words? No matter how rich you are, you can't buy more attention. And most of us give it away for free. Young people tell me they get a notification every time they get an email because they don't want to miss anything. But if you commit to not missing things, that means you're never fully present and you actually miss everything. So turn off almost all notifications.

1:03:43Put an almost infinite value on your attention. Only give it to companies that are offering you something really valuable, like, of course, Uber and Lyft. You should leave on notifications. You want to know if the car is coming. But no newspapers, no sports scores, no nothing should interrupt you. Treat your attention as though it is sacred and precious. And if you can get larger pieces of it, your life will change. I cannot thank you enough for doing this research, for writing this blockbuster book, for all of the advocacy that you're doing, for the support that you're giving to the class action

1:04:21Mel Robbins:lawsuits that people are bringing to try to get the laws changed. And I really appreciate your work. And I know that my life is going to change for the better because of it. And I know millions of people's lives will as well. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do not stop. My pleasure. And thank you, Mel, for all you do to bring psychological research out to the world. You're welcome. And thank you. Thank you for making the time. You heard Dr. Height say, Your attention is the most important thing that you have. In fact, where you pour your time, where you put your attention is what determines how your life is, period.

1:04:59Mel Robbins:And so thank you for giving your single most precious resource, your attention, to this conversation. It matters. And it's gonna empower you to support your kids and support your family and support yourself in taking your power back. And in case no one else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And there is no doubt in my mind, if you take everything that you learned today and you apply it to your life, your life is going to get better and you're going to feel better and you're going to feel more in control of it.

1:05:30Mel Robbins:And you deserve that. All right. I'm going to welcome you in to the very next episode. I will see you there the moment you hit play.

1:05:40Now, is my mic close enough to my mouth? I have to move it so I can move. I talk with my hands. No, you're perfect. Don't worry about it. Hands are fantastic. We got you, Jonathan Haidt.

1:05:50Mel Robbins:It's all good. And smartphone addiction on children. Once you know what's going on, you're going to be, you will be empowered to change it. And should do to take your power back and start using your phone as it's, and start using your smartphone. He's a tenured professor. He's been a tenured professor at NYU Stern School of Business. And so thank you for giving your attention to this. Oh my God. All right, great. Awesome. Great job.

1:06:26Mel Robbins:Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Sirius XM Podcasts.

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