The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 37 - The Real Reason We Should Keep Our Kids Off Social Media

00:00:00.000 You may have heard of the controversy surrounding Snapchat.

00:00:03.720 They had added a channel called the After Dark Channel,

00:00:08.800 and it was going to be dedicated exclusively to pornographic content.

00:00:13.620 And of course, this channel would have been brought to you by,

00:00:16.180 or brought to your child by, I should say,

00:00:18.320 by that trash heap of a publication known as Cosmo.

00:00:21.940 And I say would be because they've now discontinued the channel after backlash,

00:00:26.400 and so they're not going to have that anymore.

00:00:28.440 But still, the point about Snapchat still stands.

00:00:32.420 It is a toxic dump, and nothing worthwhile can be found there,

00:00:37.820 and you shouldn't let your kid anywhere near it.

00:00:41.180 And I wrote a piece yesterday talking about why we need to get our kids off of Snapchat

00:00:46.560 and off of social media in general, and to whatever extent possible, off of the Internet as well.

00:00:52.000 I'm not going to repeat the whole thing.

00:00:53.600 But as far as Snapchat goes, this is a conversation that we shouldn't really need to have.

00:01:00.780 It's a site widely known for its sexual content, 1.00

00:01:03.900 because sexual content is part of the whole point of the thing.

00:01:07.800 It's part of why it was invented, is for sexual content. 0.98

00:01:11.020 Why do you think when people decide they're going to invent this tool where you can send

00:01:18.280 and interact with photos and then videos that delete themselves after a few seconds,

00:01:25.500 what, I mean, when most people on the Internet see that feature, what are they thinking?

00:01:31.580 How do you think they're going to use it?

00:01:33.280 So, of course, it's going to end up being a site that's overrun with sexual content.

00:01:39.280 It's one of the primary points of the thing in the first place.

00:01:43.180 So why would we as parents allow our kids into that minefield?

00:01:51.260 I try not to condemn other parents or to judge them too harshly,

00:01:55.460 especially when I'm dealing with older parents who have older kids.

00:01:59.500 And so they've been through things I haven't been through.

00:02:01.400 They have met challenges that I haven't met yet, and I understand that.

00:02:05.700 But there are some things that are just very difficult to understand.

00:02:10.720 And allowing your kid to use Snapchat, well, that's a hard one for me to wrap my head around.

00:02:16.200 Now, if you tell me that you have prohibited it,

00:02:18.900 but your kid is sneaking around and trying to find ways around your rules,

00:02:24.720 well, look, I understand that.

00:02:26.340 I mean, I totally understand.

00:02:28.460 Even now with my kids as young as they are,

00:02:30.400 making a rule is no guarantee that it's going to be followed, of course.

00:02:34.680 And as kids get older, they're going to be better at breaking the rules.

00:02:37.680 So I understand all that.

00:02:39.640 But you still make the rule.

00:02:41.580 There's still a value in saying to your kids,

00:02:44.280 no, you can't, you can't, no, Snapchat, you can't do Snapchat.

00:02:47.900 If they get around it and they find a way and, you know,

00:02:50.680 then and you find out about it, you got to punish them.

00:02:52.820 I mean, that's the back and forth that happens in parenting.

00:02:55.500 I get that.

00:02:55.860 But to say as a parent, oh, yeah, sure, fine.

00:02:58.840 Go ahead and use that.

00:02:59.440 Whatever.

00:03:00.320 Fine.

00:03:00.780 That's the thing I don't get.

00:03:03.940 But it's a tool for sexting. 0.93

00:03:06.740 Okay.

00:03:07.060 That's what it is.

00:03:07.840 So just there's no reason your kid needs to be on.

00:03:11.780 But I want to talk about what I want to talk about is.

00:03:17.140 Get away from Snapchat for a minute.

00:03:18.640 What I'd like to talk about is the biggest pitfall, the most toxic aspect of social media.

00:03:27.440 Lots of studies have been done talking about its detrimental effects on a child's mental health

00:03:34.020 and well-being and all that stuff.

00:03:36.280 But a lot of times I think those studies, they miss the worst thing.

00:03:40.820 They fail to capture the worst thing about social media for kids.

00:03:44.960 And the worst thing about social media for kids, the biggest disadvantage is actually

00:03:50.040 the thing that a lot of parents think is the biggest advantage.

00:03:53.500 And that is that social media, and this is what parents who are justifying it, they'll

00:03:58.180 say something like, well, social media allows our kids to network and to stay in touch with

00:04:05.820 their friends.

00:04:07.700 First of all, your 12-year-old kid doesn't need to network.

00:04:11.000 Okay.

00:04:11.220 That's not a thing a 12-year-old needs to do.

00:04:13.000 But second, as far as staying in touch with his friends, that's the problem.

00:04:18.880 That's the whole problem with it, is the staying in touch with his friends.

00:04:25.580 Social media robs a child of his home life, of his family life.

00:04:32.240 Social media and the internet generally have become replacements for the home and for the

00:04:38.220 family.

00:04:38.560 And now, when a kid gets home from school, after spending all day at school, all day

00:04:45.060 around his friends, he spends most of his time at school, around his friends, and then

00:04:49.600 you add in after-school activities and when he's actually physically hanging out with them.

00:04:52.720 So you add all that in.

00:04:53.980 He's spending most of his time and his life at this stage with his friends and with his

00:04:58.460 peers.

00:04:58.680 But then he gets home from school and he's with his family for that brief period of time.

00:05:05.660 But now he's still connected to his peers.

00:05:07.880 He doesn't get away from them.

00:05:09.740 Now you have no time just as a family without any of that stuff.

00:05:15.120 His peers and that culture, it's always present.

00:05:18.700 He literally is carrying it around with him everywhere, attached to it physically, always.

00:05:26.840 That's the problem.

00:05:27.880 He has his computer and his phone.

00:05:30.380 And so there's like this umbilical cord connecting him to his peers all the time, always.

00:05:35.920 He remains completely immersed in peer culture, even when he's not physically surrounded by it.

00:05:43.300 He's attached to his peers, always.

00:05:45.400 He has no life outside of them.

00:05:48.540 And that's a bad thing.

00:05:51.040 And if you think about it, your kid either, presumably, either goes to school for most

00:05:58.080 of the day or you're homeschooling.

00:06:01.140 And if he goes to school for most of the day, you don't see him.

00:06:04.060 You only see him briefly.

00:06:05.920 And when he comes home, the last thing you should want him to do is to stay in touch with

00:06:10.180 his friends.

00:06:11.240 Like as if he can't be away from them for, I mean, can he not be away from them for,

00:06:15.380 for a few hours?

00:06:17.560 So there, if you send your kid away from school, you shouldn't want them to be on social media

00:06:22.440 for that reason.

00:06:23.660 And if you don't send your kid away from, for school, um, any, any homeschools, well,

00:06:30.320 then if he's on social media all the time, you've basically negated one of the, one of

00:06:35.160 the primary benefits of homeschool, which is that he's not immersed in that peer culture

00:06:40.680 and he's not subject subject to it.

00:06:43.360 And, um, and he's more, you know, he's getting his cues from you and from adults.

00:06:48.260 He's learning from adults rather than learning to ape his peers.

00:06:52.420 So that separation from peer culture is one of the great benefits of homeschool.

00:06:58.380 It's one of the, it's the point, maybe not the point.

00:07:00.940 It's one of the primary points of homeschooling.

00:07:02.800 But then when you add in social media, if your kid's a social media addict on top of

00:07:06.720 that, honestly, there's almost no point then in homeschooling.

00:07:10.180 You may as well not do it because you've, you have erased one of the great benefits of

00:07:15.360 it.

00:07:16.420 So either way, no matter what your kid does in terms of schooling, I think we should not

00:07:22.300 want our kids to be on social media.

00:07:24.440 They don't need to be on it.

00:07:25.940 There's really no benefit.

00:07:28.360 And the one thing that's usually cited as a benefit is actually the worst thing about

00:07:32.660 it.

00:07:33.860 Now, here's the thing that this is really, and I've talked about this before.

00:07:38.860 This is really what lies at the root of the suicide and depression epidemic among our kids.

00:07:46.320 Okay.

00:07:46.500 We've talked about before how suicide is on the rise.

00:07:49.720 Suicide is much more common among teenagers and preteens today than it's ever been.

00:07:55.920 Before this is something that you talk to an older person, you talk to someone who's 60

00:08:01.920 or 70 years old, and they'll tell you, this is just, you never heard about when they were

00:08:05.720 growing up.

00:08:06.160 This is, you didn't hear about this.

00:08:07.260 You never heard about a 13 year old committing suicide.

00:08:10.040 This is, this is, this happens now frequently.

00:08:12.360 It's terrible.

00:08:13.000 It's tragic.

00:08:13.860 And a lot of times we'll chalk it up to bullying.

00:08:16.220 We'll say, well, they're bullied in school and that's what led to it.

00:08:19.140 But that doesn't tell the full story.

00:08:20.900 So the problem is not just that kids are bullied at school.

00:08:27.620 The problem is that bullying has, has, has such a deep effect on kids because they're so desperate

00:08:34.740 to find approval and affirmation from their peers because they're so immersed in this culture

00:08:41.600 and they can't escape it.

00:08:43.060 The point is children have always been mistreated by their peers.

00:08:47.760 That's another thing.

00:08:48.340 If you talk to someone who's 60 or 70 years old, they'll tell you that, oh, bullying happened

00:08:52.020 when, when, uh, when I was a kid, it was, it was probably worse than it is now, which

00:08:57.300 maybe is true.

00:08:58.760 But if you're 60 years old, think back to when you were 12, maybe bullying happened then.

00:09:04.000 And it was a terrible thing.

00:09:04.860 But then what, what, what, what at the end of the school day, what happened?

00:09:09.260 You went home and there wasn't internet, there wasn't a smartphone, there wasn't social media,

00:09:15.020 there wasn't any of that.

00:09:17.080 So you, you went home and now you were away from them.

00:09:20.760 You were away from that environment.

00:09:23.520 And yeah, you had to go back to, and maybe you dreaded that, but there was a break.

00:09:27.320 There was this oasis of time where you were not around your peers or subjected to them

00:09:34.540 or to their opinions.

00:09:36.800 And you, so it was not like, you didn't feel like every second of your day, you had to spend

00:09:43.220 desperately searching for approval from your peers because there were these big chunks of

00:09:49.260 time where you were not around them at all.

00:09:52.760 That is now gone because of the phones, smartphones and social.

00:09:57.320 Media, the kids, they never escape each other anymore.

00:10:01.020 They're always with each other, either physically or in the cyber realm.

00:10:05.100 They're always around each other, always.

00:10:07.360 They're always in that world.

00:10:10.240 So it's not, it's, it's, it's not that kids are more mistreated now by their peers.

00:10:16.280 It's that they're now more attached to their peers than they've ever been before.

00:10:21.960 Which means that if they're not accepted by their peers, if they're mocked, if they're treated

00:10:29.580 cruelly, that has a much deeper impact on them because this is their whole life, is their peers.

00:10:40.940 That's, so that's where a lot of this bullying epidemic and suicide and depression, all this

00:10:46.220 stuff in kids, it's a terrible thing.

00:10:47.720 That's where a lot of it comes from, is that attachment, that orientation that kids have,

00:10:53.840 where they're completely immersed in this world together, in this kind of fog that just follows

00:11:01.520 them around and they never get away from it.

00:11:03.960 They never get a break.

00:11:05.700 And they don't want to break because it's compulsive.

00:11:08.320 Internet, social media, phones, it is a, it is, it's something that breeds compulsion.

00:11:15.480 So they, at some level, they might want to escape it, but at another, another level, they're

00:11:19.460 dependent on it, addicted to it practically.

00:11:21.840 So you, that's when parents need to step in and give them the thing that they really need

00:11:27.700 and more, and at a deeper level want, even though they don't know it, which is a break.

00:11:32.340 And we have to force that on our kids.

00:11:34.640 But whether a kid is bullied or not, this is a problem.

00:11:39.040 And people in my generation, you know, people that are my generation, people that are around

00:11:42.100 my age, we have kind of a unique perspective on this, because if you're about my age, then

00:11:46.380 you probably, you probably remember, you remember as I do, a childhood where the internet really

00:11:53.940 wasn't a thing and social media wasn't a thing.

00:11:58.320 And you also remember half of a childhood where the internet was a dominant force in your life.

00:12:03.320 And if you're like me, if you're my age, then there's this very sudden dividing line, like

00:12:11.920 before internet, and then after internet.

00:12:14.260 And it all happened very suddenly.

00:12:16.340 For me, it was probably, I think it was around eighth grade, seventh, eighth grade, right,

00:12:20.820 heading into high school.

00:12:21.660 And before that point, from birth to about eighth grade, the internet didn't exist.

00:12:30.460 I mean, it existed in some form, but it wasn't ubiquitous.

00:12:34.080 People weren't using it.

00:12:34.980 It was just a novelty.

00:12:37.420 AOL in 1995 was, I didn't have AOL in 1995, but it was not, it did not even begin, kids that

00:12:46.620 are younger don't know this, but the internet in like 1995, 94, before that, it existed,

00:12:52.560 but it did not even begin to resemble what we have now.

00:12:54.800 It was, it basically was, you wouldn't even recognize it as the internet.

00:12:57.820 So it was just kind of a novelty for a while.

00:13:00.720 And so it didn't, we didn't even have a computer for a long time.

00:13:04.400 Basically it didn't exist.

00:13:05.980 But very suddenly, right as I came into high school, everything changed.

00:13:10.320 And people had, that's when AOL was the big thing.

00:13:15.440 I think our first version of AOL was AOL, I think 2.0 or 3.0.

00:13:20.180 And I think what really changed everything was the, was the, was the communication mechanism.

00:13:26.580 So you had the AOL buddy list and instant messenger.

00:13:30.780 And then you also had, MySpace came along shortly after that.

00:13:34.300 You had chat rooms.

00:13:35.940 When I was a kid for a while, chat rooms were a big thing.

00:13:38.800 And I don't even know if chat rooms still exist, do they?

00:13:41.500 I'm not sure.

00:13:42.300 I feel like if they do, they're now probably 100% populated by sex predators.

00:13:46.520 When I was a kid, it was probably like 80% kids on chat rooms and then 20% sex predators,

00:13:52.160 which was a dangerous situation.

00:13:54.280 So, but back then you had the instant messenger, you had chat rooms, you had MySpace, which came

00:13:57.720 along shortly after that.

00:13:59.400 And out of nowhere, all this stuff became a defining feature of our lives as kids.

00:14:06.840 We still didn't have phones with the internet.

00:14:08.800 And the internet still wasn't anything like it is now, but it was similar in that you came

00:14:15.960 home from school and the main thing that you did was you got on the computer and you were

00:14:22.520 messaging through instant messenger.

00:14:24.580 You were messaging people from school.

00:14:26.900 And then through the broader internet experience, you connected with other people who you didn't

00:14:31.860 even know and you assumed were your peers, but maybe they weren't.

00:14:37.980 And I distinctly remember this as kind of a revolutionary concept for me as a kid, that I would come home

00:14:45.300 from school and the school culture, the peer culture would migrate onto the internet.

00:14:51.780 And so I could stay immersed in it.

00:14:55.180 And then that culture also changes on the internet a little bit too, because now you can be more

00:15:00.160 uninhibited.

00:15:01.620 You have more control over how you present yourself.

00:15:04.840 You're willing to say things to people over instant messenger that you wouldn't say in real life.

00:15:09.720 So then there's this exchange where peer culture migrates to the internet, things change there,

00:15:15.440 the dynamic changes, and that bleeds back over into the physical interaction.

00:15:20.600 So very quickly it began to change your personal relationships too.

00:15:25.600 And so I remember all this happening.

00:15:27.820 People my age, we remember this.

00:15:29.020 I thought it was pretty fun at the time, but I didn't see what was really happening.

00:15:36.280 And I didn't see that even at this early stage, it had consumed my home life and my family life,

00:15:42.800 replaced it.

00:15:44.620 Even though the internet wasn't as ubiquitous as it is now, it had already done that.

00:15:49.500 And even though my parents did a good job of regulating it, they were more on top of that

00:15:54.680 than most parents were of the kids my age.

00:15:57.680 But this was also, people didn't really understand what they were dealing with.

00:16:02.180 They didn't understand the internet.

00:16:03.540 It all happened pretty quickly for most of us.

00:16:06.560 And for parents, I think a lot of parents of my parents' generation were kind of fumbling around

00:16:10.560 trying to, like, they didn't see this coming.

00:16:12.800 It's when they first started having kids, they didn't factor in the internet at all.

00:16:16.760 Wasn't even on the radar screen.

00:16:18.580 And then all of a sudden you've got this thing and it's taken over everyone's life.

00:16:23.000 And parents are like, what are we supposed to do about this?

00:16:24.960 So, well, my parents did the best they could, but it still became this dominant force.

00:16:32.220 And so there's this dividing line.

00:16:34.840 The internet came onto the scene, kind of split our childhood into two.

00:16:39.640 And now you can distinctly remember childhood before internet and after internet.

00:16:43.680 And it's not hard for me to see now that the before internet chunk was much better.

00:16:49.040 There were more blue skies and trees and scraped knees and pickup football games and everything

00:16:56.340 during that first half.

00:16:59.220 So the thing that we desperately need to give our kids and that they desperately need to

00:17:04.160 receive from us is a life outside of this.

00:17:08.880 Outside of, not just outside of the internet, but outside of their peer circle.

00:17:15.180 Outside of that, we take it for granted these days that a kid will get to a certain age.

00:17:23.340 And I hear this from older parents all the time.

00:17:25.360 They tell me like, like it's inevitable, like it's going to happen.

00:17:27.840 There's nothing you can do about it.

00:17:29.540 So we take it for granted that a kid will get to a certain age, maybe 12 or 12 or 13,

00:17:33.640 something like that.

00:17:34.200 And the dichotomy between you and your kid will drastically and suddenly shift.

00:17:43.160 And a kid will come to almost hate his family, really all of a sudden out of nowhere.

00:17:51.040 There will be this sudden shift where the kid wants nothing to do with his family and basically

00:17:56.600 hates them.

00:17:57.640 And we talk about this now like it's normal and natural.

00:18:00.800 It's a natural part of growing up.

00:18:02.340 It's just the way it is.

00:18:05.020 Now, it is the way it is, but it's not natural and it's not normal.

00:18:08.680 And it doesn't need to be that way.

00:18:11.600 Obviously, it's always been the case that a kid will grow and he's going to become less

00:18:17.460 dependent, less emotionally dependent on his parents and on his family.

00:18:21.300 And that's part of the part of the growing process.

00:18:24.360 But this thing we have now where a kid becomes a teenager and just severs himself completely

00:18:31.620 emotionally from his parents.

00:18:33.960 And then teenagers have now their own culture and their own world, their own universe, their

00:18:38.520 own language, their own everything.

00:18:40.240 And adults are not allowed to access it or be a part of it.

00:18:45.360 That is not normal.

00:18:47.180 I'm here to tell you that's not how things have worked throughout human history.

00:18:51.540 It's just not.

00:18:53.880 That is a modern phenomenon.

00:18:56.520 It's a phenomenon that began in the industrial age and it just got worse over time with the

00:19:03.160 advent of these different forms of media, TV, you know, going into the internet.

00:19:08.680 And now it's just gotten worse over time because of all this.

00:19:11.360 And when you added in these kind of things in these areas where kids could congregate and,

00:19:19.860 you know, at least when you gave them all these sort of things that they could have to

00:19:24.360 themselves and that adults just didn't understand.

00:19:28.320 The advent of rock music is another example.

00:19:31.740 It was this completely new and foreign thing that our parents' generation, it was sort of 1.00

00:19:37.240 their thing and their parents just didn't even, it was like a foreign language.

00:19:40.300 They didn't understand it.

00:19:41.800 And in the modern age, it's just every generation has its own thing, has its own music, its own

00:19:48.200 clothes, its own language.

00:19:50.360 And again, we take that for granted.

00:19:52.100 We shouldn't take it for granted.

00:19:53.340 That's not the way it's historically been for the human species.

00:19:58.320 And now it's gotten to the point where it's just worse than it's ever been before.

00:20:02.880 Because the kids, they carry around their phones and they have their own worlds where they

00:20:08.300 interact with each other and where they're with each other.

00:20:10.360 And adults just can't access it and don't understand it.

00:20:15.200 And they don't really know.

00:20:17.420 Like you see your kid all day at his house looking at his phone.

00:20:22.020 You don't really know what he's looking at or what he's doing.

00:20:24.180 He has his whole life to himself.

00:20:27.480 It's not normal.

00:20:28.580 It's not natural.

00:20:30.140 I admit it's a very difficult thing to break free of in modern society, but it is possible

00:20:35.000 because it is not a natural and normal part of growing up.

00:20:38.560 We have only decided that it must be for us now.

00:20:42.980 So a child wants to be on social media so that he doesn't miss out.

00:20:49.460 But what I'm saying is missing out is exactly what he needs.

00:20:56.720 He doesn't need more ways to connect with his friends.

00:21:00.380 He's already way too connected to them.

00:21:03.140 He needs a break from his friends.

00:21:05.940 He needs to have a life and an identity outside of them.

00:21:09.420 He needs to escape them.

00:21:11.120 And I think the home and the family should be an escape from that.

00:21:18.020 And that's what we have to give them.

00:21:20.900 And that means, at a minimum, to begin with, keeping them off of social media because

00:21:26.120 nothing good can come of it.

00:21:29.820 All right, guys.

00:21:30.620 Thanks for watching and listening.

00:21:31.700 Godspeed.

00:21:32.140 Have a great weekend and a great Memorial Day.

00:21:35.700 So I'll talk to you on Tuesday.

The Matt Walsh Show - May 25, 2018

Ep. 37 - The Real Reason We Should Keep Our Kids Off Social Media

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