The Megyn Kelly Show - Deep Dive： How Technology and Addiction to Phones Harms Real Life Interactions, with Christine Rosen ｜ Ep. 879

00:00:00.520 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:12.020 Hey everyone, welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. I'm Megyn Kelly. Technology has improved our

00:00:17.180 lives in many ways, as you know, but it comes with some serious downsides. As we spend more

00:00:22.420 of our lives online, are we treating our sense of self and even reality for convenience and

00:00:29.840 a smiley face emoji? A new book tackles the ways in which we're losing some of our own humanity

00:00:35.560 as part of our new way of life. Christine Rosen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise

00:00:40.780 Institute, a columnist for Commentary Magazine, and author of The Extinction of Experience,

00:00:47.260 Being Human in a Disembodied World. It's out September 10th, and you can pre-order it right

00:00:52.760 now on Amazon. Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix,

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00:01:45.360 to serve others is yours. Let it flourish. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Private,

00:01:51.920 Christian, affordable. Visit gcu.edu. Christine, welcome back to the show. Love your work on

00:02:00.680 commentary, both online and on the pod with Mr. Pod himself, John Podoretz, and others.

00:02:07.580 Thanks for having me. It's good to be back.

00:02:10.120 Yeah, congrats on the book. So explain to us what it's about in a nutshell.

00:02:14.280 Well, I was concerned while I watched each new generation coming of age, including my own kids,

00:02:21.180 that there were a number of experiences that those of us who grew up pre-smartphone, pre-internet

00:02:26.800 had had that were disappearing. Basic things like learning how to write by hand, but also broader

00:02:32.840 skills like how to wait, how to be bored, how to daydream. The kinds of things that now, because we have

00:02:39.440 these powerful new technologies, which are wonderful in many ways, they don't allow us to

00:02:43.900 experience some of these things that actually do help us become better human beings. So that was

00:02:48.400 the spark for thinking about all the ways in which we are mediating some of our human relationships and

00:02:53.860 our human experiences in ways that might not be good for us long-term. I mean, I think about it,

00:02:59.640 like you and I grew up, I think we're around the same age at a time when, you know, all day long,

00:03:05.020 mom, what can I do? Play outside, play outside. And that's what you would do, right? You'd ride

00:03:10.040 your bike, you build a fort, you'd play a game with your friends. And now you look at these kids

00:03:14.200 and they can be in the same room playing video games against each other without looking at each

00:03:21.360 other, without speaking to each other. Is this basically what you're trying to embody with the

00:03:26.260 extinction of experience?

00:03:28.380 Yes. The title actually comes from a naturalist who was worried that kids growing up in a world

00:03:34.280 where they didn't play outside and they didn't experience the natural world wouldn't understand

00:03:38.440 what they'd lost if that world disappeared. And I feel like our real world, because of the power

00:03:43.880 of our technologies, some of our real world experiences are disappearing because we outsource

00:03:48.600 them to technology. Friends get together online, but less so in face-to-face ways. Our public spaces,

00:03:55.880 which used to be places you could bump into people, meet new people, have become just Wi-Fi

00:04:00.800 hotspots where we can all be in our own little universe on our phones. And the way we treat each

00:04:05.400 other is affected by that. We are less patient. If you look at rates of road rage and air rage,

00:04:10.540 we are less likely to be able to get along. And some of the things we do to each other when we have

00:04:17.760 the safety of a screen between us and another human being aren't things we'd ever do if we were

00:04:22.060 face-to-face. That's very true. You also write about how, like, the ability to read another

00:04:29.460 person's facial expressions is as an important and practiced art and that this younger generation

00:04:37.360 is not developing it. Yes, it's interesting. There's a lot of really interesting behavioral

00:04:42.840 science research about how we've evolved to read each other's bodily signals, but especially to read

00:04:48.460 facial expressions. And if you talk to people, as I did when I was doing research on this book,

00:04:53.040 people who work in diplomacy or in business or in other public-facing jobs, they'll tell you

00:04:58.140 people don't make eye contact. They don't know how to make small talk. They've lost some skills.

00:05:04.760 Part of that's because we don't have to practice them. We can do a lot through the screen, which is

00:05:08.880 easier. It's more efficient. It's easier to send an emoji than to learn as a child whether someone's face

00:05:14.400 is smiling because they're angry or because they're actually happy. But we're hardwired as human

00:05:19.020 beings to read those signals. We just need to practice more. Yeah, you wrote about how, like,

00:05:25.760 humans are uniquely designed to do that. Like, we don't have—obviously, some men have facial hair—but we

00:05:31.500 don't have hair all over our faces. We have these faces that actually really are primed to show emotion

00:05:37.180 if only someone would look at them. Right. We're outsourcing a lot of our expression of emotion

00:05:43.240 to technologies. Those technologies, in turn, are reading us, too, and not necessarily only to

00:05:49.180 benefit us, to make money for the companies that create the platforms, obviously. But also, it's a lot

00:05:54.860 of information about ourselves that maybe we wouldn't want to share if we were asked straightforwardly.

00:05:59.920 Would you want someone to be able to read your attempt to seem cheerful when, in fact, you're annoyed

00:06:04.980 with them? Well, we have technology that will do that now, and I'm not sure we necessarily want to be

00:06:09.800 revealing that much of ourselves in our use of these technologies either.

00:06:14.120 So how are, like, all the memes and the emojis that are so popular with Gen Z playing into this? Are

00:06:21.440 those a force for good or a force for evil? So I spent some time in meme world. You know,

00:06:27.340 I'm a Gen Xer and I'm old, so I still use emojis and badly, according to my children. But I found those

00:06:34.320 really creative because they're quite evocative. They tend to be extremely sarcastic, and some of

00:06:41.440 them are just downright funny. But the emotional impact is what I think that generation in particular

00:06:47.120 is trying to express through a medium that isn't as expressive as their human body is, right? So

00:06:52.780 they're trying to get their friends to laugh at something that they find funny, but they're not in

00:06:57.820 the presence of those friends as often as they used to be. And that's actually the problem is that

00:07:04.200 they can be very creative in their use of this technology, but they are choosing the technology

00:07:09.240 and the mediated relationships over being face-to-face with each other, and that's a more

00:07:14.480 valuable connection in the long term for them. Yes. I learned over the past couple of years that,

00:07:19.640 for example, one of the things that we are not supposed to be doing as Gen Xers that we are doing is,

00:07:24.600 for example, I guess you're not supposed to be using emojis at all. I didn't know that, but

00:07:28.920 the one where the head is tilted and the tears are coming out as they're laughing, like crying,

00:07:34.180 laughing. If you use that emoji, you're supposed to put at least three of them there. If you want

00:07:38.180 to stay somewhat cool, just using a single floating head is a hard no. But I didn't know this. We're not

00:07:44.420 supposed to be using emojis at all. That's out now? Yes. No, we're all very uncool. Although I do think,

00:07:51.160 if I could give a plug for our generation, because we're so underappreciated culturally and socially,

00:07:56.800 we are the hybrid generation. We grew up without this stuff. We had to learn how to use it at a

00:08:01.300 pretty formative time in our lives. And we've maintained our sort of healthy skepticism and

00:08:06.700 cynicism about it. I think the younger generations need to learn from our skepticism and have more of

00:08:12.540 that themselves. And I think we all need to be more thoughtful about what we let into our lives and

00:08:19.140 mediate, particularly in private, in our family lives, in our personal lives. And in the way that

00:08:24.920 we do anything as human beings, listen to music, go to a concert, go to a museum, don't do everything

00:08:30.620 through your screen, put it away and actually experience something in real time, in real life

00:08:35.620 and see the difference. You have a very interesting piece in here about photographs on your phone.

00:08:42.780 And I would love to talk to you about this. I mean, I remember Sirius XM sometimes sets up

00:08:48.680 these private concerts and they invite their most loyal listeners to go. And it's actually really

00:08:52.940 cool. And so I've gone to a couple of them and we went to one that were Green Day was playing.

00:08:57.880 They were so good. It was great. And the guys said to the crowd, all of, you know, everybody had their

00:09:04.020 phones up because you want to get your, your favorite song, you know, recorded. Why? They could just press,

00:09:09.380 you know, your Apple play, whatever, listen to, you don't have to record them. Right. But we do.

00:09:15.060 And they said, put down your phones, put down your phones. They want, they want the audience just

00:09:19.740 experience it without this phone in between the musicians and the audience. And I was like,

00:09:26.560 that's so interesting that that's important to them, that they see that as like a piece of the

00:09:31.320 experience. And you seem to be supportive of that idea based on what you said about the photographs

00:09:36.620 on the phone. Can you talk about that? Yes. It's interesting. People take a lot more

00:09:41.020 pictures nowadays and the pictures that we're able to take are far more sophisticated, you know,

00:09:45.280 than, than in the days of, you know, early Polaroid or early cameras where you had to wait

00:09:49.000 for film to be developed. And I think we all take pictures thinking I'll have this memory. I've

00:09:53.600 captured this moment in life. It's important to me. And I'll go back and look at it later.

00:09:57.420 But all the research shows that two things, one, the more pictures you take,

00:10:01.640 the less you remember about the actual experience you're having. And second, you don't usually go

00:10:07.380 back and look at those pictures in the same way that again, to go old school, people used to sit

00:10:11.700 down together and look at an old family photo album and turn the pages and see the pictures and talk

00:10:16.460 about who was doing what, when we actually don't do that as often as we think we do when we take the

00:10:22.460 picture. But it's the memory formation that I'm, I'm really interested in because those memories are

00:10:27.360 now owned by the platforms that you put the pictures on, not owned by you, they might disappear

00:10:32.140 if the platform disappears. It's a lot more ephemeral of a capturing of memory. And I do think

00:10:37.900 our artists in the world and our, you know, our painters, our writers, our musicians, our comedians,

00:10:42.500 they're ahead of the curve here. Not only are they giving us warnings about how AI might transform

00:10:48.200 art and literature, but they're reminding us that to have a true experience, to really be open to an

00:10:55.160 experience that someone else is trying to show you, you have, you have to not mediate it. You have

00:11:00.700 to pay attention. So when artists and musicians say, put down your phone, that's really good advice.

00:11:06.340 I would say we should do that a lot more times in our lives, not just concerts.

00:11:11.100 Well, I'm thinking about, you know, like your kids play, right? Like trust that the school is going

00:11:18.060 to have a videotape of it. They always do. Right. And you just go and look at your child on the stage

00:11:25.040 and experience what he's doing or in his own, you know, fifth grade concert or whatever it is.

00:11:30.820 You've got, how many kids do you have, Christina? How old are they?

00:11:32.840 I have two boys. They, they just started college. So, oh, oh, wow. Congrats on that. That's also,

00:11:39.500 I mean, congrats. And also I hope you're fine. Cause I don't know. It's like, oh, I'm in denial.

00:11:45.800 It's happening, but I hear they get less tolerable when they're in senior year or so. Maybe it's

00:11:49.860 anyway, there's something to that. So you, the, the, the phone in between you is it's not great

00:11:57.460 for the artist and it's not great for you. You're not going to remember it as well. And the actual

00:12:03.120 photograph isn't going to bring back the same memories for you. You also conform to the behavior

00:12:08.600 that the machine wants you to in a way, if that makes sense. You, you hold the phone between you

00:12:13.820 and the experience to capture it, but that changes how, what you can even see in the frame in the same

00:12:18.960 way that, you know, watching something on a screen on television is, is, uh, affected by what's

00:12:24.560 around your TV, like a pile of dirty laundry, or maybe, you know, a plant. So the, we, we forget

00:12:29.920 that these, these amazing tools actually do, uh, have a strong impact on how we behave, how we see

00:12:36.800 the world and they want to frame how we see the world. And I think we often think they're neutral,

00:12:42.160 but they're not, they're far more ambivalent. And particularly when it comes to the kind of

00:12:46.340 information that technology companies would like to know about us, the kinds of sophisticated

00:12:50.520 sensors that can be embedded in things like a employee ID badge or a phone these days. Um,

00:12:56.340 it's a lot more sophisticated than I think people realize, and it's gathering a lot more information

00:13:00.940 than they might want, uh, others to have. I will say one thing on the phone. Obviously people are

00:13:07.340 still going to take pictures with their phones. I recommend having done these big fun vacations with

00:13:12.020 the family every June. If you just move all your, your favorites, if you click favorites,

00:13:16.920 not from your trip, like on your airplane ride home, and then don't even think about it. Don't

00:13:21.600 think about organizing them to just send it off to shutter fly or one of the, whatever one you use

00:13:26.260 and they send you back a book. It's so simple. Then at least you have the actual hard copy. And we do

00:13:31.820 look at that, but you're right. We never look at the ones on the phone. I mean, never, you don't,

00:13:36.840 well, you've turned it insurance policy. Exactly. Well, but it's great because you've

00:13:40.980 made an analog, uh, memorable object out of something that started in the digital world.

00:13:45.680 And those kinds of choices are the ones I would like to see us making more often when it comes

00:13:51.060 to these new technologies. Something you can actually touch and feel again, the book is called

00:13:55.660 the extinction of experience by Christine Rosen. You can get your advanced copy now pre-order while you

00:14:02.360 can. Can you explain what the, what the bystander effect is and how this affects how we interact

00:14:07.800 with one another? Yes, this was a, there were a number of, uh, stories in the last, uh, five to

00:14:13.040 10 years that really bothered me. Um, usually they were crime stories and, uh, they were images that

00:14:17.860 people had taken video or pictures of people who were in peril. You know, maybe they were trying to

00:14:23.340 jump off a bridge to commit suicide or they were being beaten up by an assailant. And instead of

00:14:28.500 doing one of two things, intervening or calling nine one, one, instead they videotaped or took

00:14:34.440 images of those people suffering. And that actually has become far more common. And in a way, having

00:14:41.440 this technology in our hand makes us automatically think, Oh, I don't have to act. I am doing something.

00:14:47.180 I'm filming it. I'm taking a picture. But in fact, as human beings, what we owe each other is to call

00:14:53.040 nine one, um, to intervene. If that's something that we can, we can safely do to help someone else.

00:14:57.740 And I worry that, that the, the power, the device gives us a lot, gives us a kind of moral escape

00:15:03.760 hatch from doing the right thing in some of these public settings. The same time that we're actually

00:15:08.100 a lot more rude and impatient with each other in public settings, in part, because we like to be

00:15:12.840 able to do what we want when we want, because we're used to doing that on our phones. So as our

00:15:17.720 obligation as citizens and just as human beings is to kind of look out for each other in public space.

00:15:23.080 And I, and I fear that because we're so in tune, uh, in our own little, uh, virtual realities we

00:15:28.200 create with our phones, that we fail in those obligations a lot of times. And, and that puts

00:15:32.860 us all at risk long-term. We want a society where people are looking out for each other.

00:15:37.480 You see it every time there's like a bully beat down, it'll show you the beat down,

00:15:42.920 and then you'll see some other students shot and it'll, all you'll see is students filming it.

00:15:48.760 Just holding up their phone. Oh, there are whole sites devoted to this, uh, online. Actually,

00:15:53.760 it's kind of horrifying. So the subtitle of the book is, well, it's the, the title is the extension

00:15:59.180 of experience being human in a disembodied world. And I feel like that disembodied piece

00:16:04.620 speaks to one of the principles that you espouse in the book, which is we're losing our empathy.

00:16:09.520 It's, it's going and it's going fast and we really need our empathy now more than ever.

00:16:14.420 So how is the, how is the tech and all of these problems that we're outlining here

00:16:18.700 robbing us of our empathy? Well, one of the ways I think it does that is that we,

00:16:23.940 we sort of gradually, we assume the new thing is an improvement, right? We get a new technology.

00:16:28.580 We're like, this is really cool. It can do all these great things. And often that's true.

00:16:32.020 And we use it as a supplement for a while, but then it becomes a replacement. So here's an example,

00:16:37.100 nurses. If you go into a hospital, some hospitals now, when it's time to check out from your stay

00:16:42.300 in the hospital, you'll get a robot nurse and it is a robot. And sometimes it has a human face on

00:16:47.660 a screen, but often it's a kind of checking you out of the hospital robot and it runs through a

00:16:51.980 checklist and off you go. And it's great for the hospital. You don't have to pay that person's

00:16:56.140 healthcare. It's a robot. It'll work nonstop, 24 seven, doesn't need a break. And it never gets

00:17:02.240 cranky or impatient with patients. So it's a win-win for the hospital. But it strikes me that

00:17:07.940 the more, the ease with which we were replacing these human relationships, particularly at, you

00:17:12.920 know, in, in old folks homes or in the hospital, when we're very vulnerable, we shouldn't accept 0.84

00:17:18.320 that human, the substitute for the human because the human is what we need. We'll all get old. We'll

00:17:22.920 all get frail. We all will need that sort of human comfort. And we all have a finite lifespan.

00:17:28.380 And I think a lot of the optimism of Silicon Valley, which is great for entrepreneurship and

00:17:33.580 free enterprise forgets that to be human is to know one's limits, not just one's possibilities.

00:17:40.360 And so those, those responsibilities we have to each other as humans, we don't want to use

00:17:44.860 technology to replace the human. Like, I don't think people who need therapy should rely on an AI

00:17:50.240 chatbot for their therapist. They sometimes need a human being to look them in the eyes and really

00:17:54.820 listen to them. Yes. And show emotion. I mean, in a much letter, lighter context, I would say,

00:18:01.260 you know, you call good luck calling an airline to adjust your reservation or find your lost

00:18:06.940 luggage. All you, you're spending the whole day going representative, representative, human being,

00:18:12.020 human being. Exactly. So, so frustrating. It's just the small things like we ordered food. We ordered

00:18:19.340 dinner in the other night and the, the place had a recording saying you can only do it online.

00:18:23.880 You can't speak with anybody live. So we go online, but then there was no box to uncheck

00:18:29.260 cheese. And my boys have convinced themselves that they don't like cheese, even though they

00:18:33.400 do like cheese, they eat pizza, but we have to go along with this lie anyway. Um, so we were trying

00:18:39.240 to get, so you couldn't uncheck cheese. So now we've ordered them something that's cheesy. So then my

00:18:44.280 husband's trying to call them back just to say, can I just say no cheese? Just like, didn't give us

00:18:49.160 you like for 40 minutes, he was on hold trying to get through. That's the kind of stuff that drives

00:18:55.720 you nuts. And all you just need is like the appropriate human staffing. So you can have a

00:19:00.000 quick and probably fun human interaction with somebody. Right. Well, in that, those replacements,

00:19:06.540 I mean, again, like when they first went, when everyone first went online, it's like, it's going to

00:19:10.180 make it so much easier. You don't have to deal with humans who make mistakes, but we get caught in

00:19:14.440 these loops, right? These sort of, uh, these, these horrible purgatorial phone call, these phone

00:19:19.240 trees, or when you're trying to order or correct something online. And, and we forget that we, we

00:19:23.820 chose that right by, by embracing technology in that way. And I think I don't, one thing that worries

00:19:29.180 me is I don't want those, the human interactions, uh, to become a luxury good as, as it were. I mean,

00:19:34.940 we should, we should want to help each other and we should be able to reach out. Businesses

00:19:38.720 should be smart about realizing not everybody wants to be bothered or harassed when they're

00:19:43.660 shopping, for example, but that doesn't mean that we don't ever want to speak to a human being. So,

00:19:48.380 you know, we have a lot of these self checkout kiosks, all these things that are supposed to make

00:19:52.400 things easier on demand, but we lose the human touch. And the human touch is what gives us, as you said

00:19:57.940 earlier, empathy, uh, thoughtfulness, comfort, um, feeling like we're kind of all in this together.

00:20:04.220 And, and faith in your fellow human, you know, if you've, if you've ever gone to, let's say a library

00:20:09.700 or a store where you're looking for something, you need help and you, you meet somebody who goes

00:20:14.060 above and beyond to help you. You can't believe it. You're so touched. It's like, Oh my gosh,

00:20:19.920 another human going above and beyond instead of bare minimum. It's, it's wonderful. We've gotten so

00:20:26.320 used to the opposite, you know, starting with a robot and then moving on to an apathetic, you know,

00:20:33.220 staffer who doesn't want to help you at all. So yes, I completely agree. Now all of this is well and

00:20:38.180 good. Cause we're talking about friendships and that's fine. But in the love department,

00:20:41.660 it gets very serious. Like how is tech affecting our love relationships? Because as you know,

00:20:49.140 and as has been in the news an awful lot lately, we do need to keep getting married and having

00:20:54.960 children. If we want like a human race to go on. Yes. That, that pesky thing, reproduction. Um,

00:21:02.520 I, I think this is actually where a lot of people's, uh, particularly younger generation,

00:21:07.460 their healthy skepticism starts to emerge. They're all on the dating apps. They're all meeting in this

00:21:12.680 way. They're all having to perform themselves, you know, sort of advertise themselves like they're a

00:21:18.640 product and they've gotten used to this and they think, well, everybody does. It's just the way

00:21:22.760 things are. I would say it doesn't have to be that way because when you're used to these mediated

00:21:28.400 encounters and when you meet someone for the first time in person, and you already know huge amounts

00:21:33.380 about them from their profile, assuming their profile is being honest, which in many cases,

00:21:37.660 it's not then, then it actually makes that, that initial assessment of each other more awkward,

00:21:43.960 more challenging in a lot of ways. And I think it, it leads to what we're seeing, which is a lot of

00:21:49.160 people, uh, delaying, trying to find relationships, delaying marriage, delaying, having children

00:21:53.640 in part out of fear and anxiety. So all of, again, these tools that we're supposed to make meeting people

00:21:58.980 easier because of their design choice, because of the way they make people advertise themselves,

00:22:04.100 um, has, has actually made it more challenging for, for a lot of people. And they feel more

00:22:10.140 comfortable than just hiding out, hanging at home, texting their friends via the screen. And when you

00:22:15.000 interview younger generations, they often don't even recognize the signs of their own attraction to

00:22:20.320 another person when they experienced it. They're like, I got really sweaty and nervous. I'm like, well,

00:22:24.200 cause you like her. And he's like, oh, I guess that's true. Like they don't even read their own

00:22:29.060 body's signals in the way that, that I think a lot of us who are older take for granted.

00:22:34.760 Wow. That's sad, but yes, sounds real. So what, what is the solution to all of this? You know,

00:22:41.040 the latest thing is to say like touch grass, if you've gotten too crazy online and I get it,

00:22:45.880 it's short form, right? But what is the solution?

00:22:49.740 Well, I mean, it's going to sound silly, but we have to be more Amish. And by that, I mean, 0.93

00:22:53.580 don't, don't get rid of your zippers and get a horse and buggy, but think about every technology

00:22:59.820 and platform that you choose to use before you embrace it fully. And that means if you're a

00:23:05.280 parent, think about the stuff you're bringing into your home for your kids to use, what they're

00:23:08.740 seeing and doing on their phones. And then choose to actually, you have to choose the human these

00:23:14.880 days. I guess that's the message. You actually have to go out of your way and reintroduce friction

00:23:19.020 into your life. That means, okay, you know what? I'm going to have to deal with talking to this

00:23:23.320 stranger and that's awkward, but I also might make a new friend or meet an interesting person.

00:23:27.840 I have to go into public space without the, without the comfort object of my phone to look at

00:23:32.860 and instead look around me, see, see what's going on in the world around me. All of these things are,

00:23:38.320 are uncomfortable. And so I would say we should be a little more uncomfortable. It's what makes us

00:23:42.880 human. We should, we should reintroduce friction so we can relearn patience. We should daydream.

00:23:48.140 We should not fill every single free moment by checking our email or texting someone or looking

00:23:53.320 at our phones. There's a lot going on in the world around us if we choose to pay attention. So I think

00:23:57.960 I would, I would like to see more of that. And I would like to see more thoughtful skepticism

00:24:02.280 about all the new stuff that we're promised will change our lives, but often has unintended

00:24:07.580 consequences. The phones of course are made to be addictive and they are. So it is harder than you'd

00:24:14.960 think to put it down, not take it with you. When you go to a restaurant with your family,

00:24:19.360 when you go on a walk. And I would say in certain professions, including ours,

00:24:23.220 it's even tougher because you have an excuse of, well, I need, I need to be up. What if something

00:24:29.020 breaks? Like I need to be up on the latest development, but you know, you can still,

00:24:33.480 even as a journalist, put your phone down and take some time off unless you work on the staff of the

00:24:40.420 Megyn Kelly show, in which case you must have the ability to reach each other at all times.

00:24:45.380 That's right. No, but we do, we do habituate. And again, like our kids watch us, right? They see us

00:24:51.960 unable to put the phone down and there's been some wonderful stuff being done about,

00:24:55.640 you know, banning cell phones in schools. I think that's great. I think schools should

00:25:00.080 absolutely take the lead on a lot of this stuff and what they find in a lot of these situations,

00:25:04.420 the teachers love it. The kids actually are relieved not to have their phones,

00:25:07.820 you know, constantly distracting them, but the parents, the parents want to track the kids all

00:25:12.040 day. So they actually have to deal with the parents too. And again, these are like little

00:25:17.800 digital slot machines giving us our dopamine hits and it's very hard to put it down, but modeling

00:25:23.400 that behavior for the next generation and for ourselves, setting them aside when we can,

00:25:28.380 it's really important, not just for our own attention, but for how we interact with each other

00:25:33.340 and how we see each other and see everyone around us in public space. We need to change how

00:25:37.600 we behave in public space. Christine, I love listening to you on the commentary podcast.

00:25:43.060 And I know that among your other duties, you are a media critic and you pay close attention to

00:25:48.660 our profession and how sad it's gotten. And I just thought I couldn't let you leave without asking you

00:25:54.660 about the return of Brian Stelter to CNN. Are you heaving a huge sigh of relief to add his return?

00:26:02.380 I feel like it's the network's cry for help. I really, I don't understand it. He, you know,

00:26:08.320 the reliable sources newsletter, I think became sort of a parody, both because of its title and

00:26:14.660 its activity. Nobody believes the fact checkers actually have anything other than a partisan

00:26:19.640 interest because they only fact check one side. And social media has actually undermined the power

00:26:25.820 they used to have because we can fact check in real time with community notes and other tools.

00:26:30.340 So I am not quite sure. I know Mr. Stelter has enthusiastically said he's a changed man.

00:26:37.440 It's like, he's the guy who went off and meditated on an ashram for a year. He comes back and he's

00:26:41.660 like, I'm all new. I doubt it because the incentives of that network to continue to do what they've

00:26:46.160 always done are still quite high. So I call me highly skeptical that we're going to see a

00:26:50.720 new Brian Stelter out there.

00:26:53.100 He's a farmer now, Christine. He's a farmer. He moved near a horse farm.

00:26:56.780 So he understands the right. You see, that's how it works. All right. Now I should end it on that

00:27:02.940 joyful note, but I've got, I've got to ask you a more serious question before we go.

00:27:06.400 And we don't do a ton of, uh, you know, overseas reporting on this show. I know you guys do a lot

00:27:12.760 of it, but what happened in Israel, what happened in Gaza and Rafa this week was just absolutely

00:27:17.520 horrific. I know you guys covered it at length and the death of not just this American hostage,

00:27:22.620 but all six of them has been absolutely horrific. Can you help our audience understand? Because

00:27:27.880 what we've seen from the left-wing press is this is all about Bibi Netanyahu. It's his fault.

00:27:33.140 It's Hamas's fault, of course, but it's also his fault and kind of making it political against him 0.80

00:27:39.280 and conservatives. And I think a lot of people don't know what to think about Hamas's actions

00:27:45.280 and it's barbarity in this particular instance and what they should be taking away from it. What are

00:27:51.480 your thoughts? Well, it's a very, it's a very good question. And, and obviously our hearts go

00:27:55.900 out to the families, um, uh, of the hostages who were killed and the remaining hostages. Part of the

00:28:00.540 problem is that our mainstream media has spent, uh, since October 7th has not actually covered what's

00:28:06.760 going on over there in a way that could be even conceivably thought of as objective. Um, they are

00:28:12.320 the, the, there's a lot of moral equivalence going on between, uh, Israel, which was attacked

00:28:18.040 and whose innocent, uh, men, women, and children were slaughtered and Hamas, a, an avowed terrorist 0.74

00:28:24.220 organization. Um, there's this sense of, well, we have to make a deal, a hostage deal, hostage deal

00:28:29.480 at every point in this hostage negotiation deal that, that Tony Blinken and other members of the

00:28:35.560 Biden administration have participated in. Israel has said, okay, we'll do that. We'll do that. We want

00:28:40.120 to get our people back alive. At every single point, Hamas has said, no, they are the ones who

00:28:46.060 are preventing a deal. But what you'll hear if you read the New York times or watch mainstream,

00:28:50.200 uh, television news is Israel somehow brought this on themselves. They need to, they need to give,

00:28:56.240 give more and more and more to Hamas. Um, and then there, then the hostages will be released. But as we 0.55

00:29:01.600 saw tragically, uh, last week, that's not the case. They were actually on their way to rescue those

00:29:07.400 hostages and, and, um, Hamas killed them. Um, Hamas should not be, it should always be held

00:29:13.940 responsible for what happens to those people. And the idea that Netanyahu, uh, you can criticize

00:29:19.080 his policies and criticize his politics. He's a very complicated man, but the fact that our, uh,

00:29:25.260 we're an ally, we're supposed to behave like an ally. And it points along the way, both Biden and

00:29:30.940 to a greater extent, Harris have always stopped short of actually condemning Hamas for what they

00:29:37.620 had done. Harris did make a very strong statement after the, after the hostages were killed. But when

00:29:42.580 she was pressed, she kind of backed away a little bit and she's very inconsistent when she chooses to

00:29:47.780 even announce a policy. We rarely actually get her committing to that policy for long. So my concern is

00:29:53.480 that we've had a very slanted media narrative for people who only watch mainstream media. When it comes

00:29:58.560 to Israel, we've seen the horrible things that have been going on, on American campuses,

00:30:02.680 American flags burn a very anti-American, anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic sentiment that's being,

00:30:08.020 um, allowed to flourish on college campuses. Uh, this is a, this should have been a wake up call

00:30:14.060 to all those people who believed what they were being spoon fed in the media about Israel.

00:30:18.280 Tragically, I think it won't be. Um, but I do want to hear, uh, particularly from the Harris

00:30:22.940 campaign, maybe it'll happen at the debate next week. I want to hear a pretty strong statement,

00:30:27.180 uh, of support for our ally Israel and, and the Jewish people.

00:30:32.300 It was just so heartbreaking hearing Hirsch Goldberg, Poland's mom at the funeral. I mean,

00:30:38.320 as, as a mother, you could just, your heart breaks for her. They were shot execution style

00:30:43.240 as they understood that the Israelis were coming to rescue them. There was just,

00:30:46.740 they were not going to let these hostages be rescued. They were not going to let them

00:30:51.380 have freedom again after nearly a year in captivity is just, I mean, their barbarism was already known.

00:30:56.940 But if you needed a reminder, it was there, a stark reminder, um, this past weekend. Anyway,

00:31:03.120 thank you for letting me go there to some, some darkness and some light. Um, I see the light as

00:31:09.020 Brian Stelter. I know you do too. And, uh, if you want more from Christine, as you should,

00:31:14.960 the book is called The Extinction of Experience, Being Human in a Disembodied World. It's great to

00:31:21.060 talk to you. Thank you for being here and good luck with the book.

00:31:23.360 You too. Thanks so much for having me.

00:31:26.140 All right. And it's out again next week, available for pre-order

00:31:29.000 right now. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

00:31:35.160 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

00:31:53.360 Thanks for listening.

The Megyn Kelly Show - September 05, 2024

Deep Dive： How Technology and Addiction to Phones Harms Real Life Interactions, with Christine Rosen ｜ Ep. 879

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