TRIGGERnometry - Why is Gen Z so Depressed and Anxious？ - Freya India

00:00:00.720 In America, between 2012 and 2019, the suicide rate for girls aged 10 to 14 increased by 138%.

00:00:09.360 Wow.

00:00:10.080 I think it's something like 75% of girls posting or users posting on Instagram are using Facetune.

00:00:16.320 The actual app has become, like, the act of retouching your selfies has become feminist somehow.

00:00:22.720 So pretending to look in a way that you don't actually look is now empowering?

00:00:27.680 Yes, yeah. It's completely changed.

00:00:30.100 Well, that's what all the celebrities say.

00:00:32.600 I mean, Khloe Kardashian, she literally face-tuned her own newborn baby when it was born.

00:00:37.620 And she calls it life-changing.

00:00:40.680 Plastic surgeons are talking about this thing, Snapchat dysmorphia.

00:00:44.340 Women used to come in with pictures of celebrities that they wanted to look like. 1.00

00:00:47.880 But now they come in with pictures of themselves with a Snapchat filter on.

00:00:51.400 So I think it's definitely, yeah, the result of social media creating unrealistic beauty expectations.

00:00:57.680 that are just kind of robotic, cyborgian look

00:01:01.120 that you just can't replicate without filters.

00:01:04.200 If you had a teenage child now,

00:01:06.440 would you let them on social media?

00:01:08.280 No.

00:01:09.120 I wouldn't either.

00:01:09.960 No, I wouldn't.

00:01:11.040 All right, well, before we wrap up then,

00:01:12.720 what do we do about all this?

00:01:23.920 Hello, and welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:26.600 I'm Francis Foster.

00:01:27.760 I'm Constantine Kishin.

00:01:28.840 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:01:33.960 Our fantastic guest today is a young writer who's going to shed some light

00:01:37.300 onto whatever's going on with young people today.

00:01:39.380 Freya India, welcome to Trigonometry. 0.98

00:01:40.200 Hi, thank you for having me.

00:01:41.520 It's so great to have you on.

00:01:42.720 I am a massive fan of your writing, I have to say.

00:01:45.020 And you don't write a huge amount, but all your articles I've read

00:01:48.520 and I thought this is someone who's offering a new and different take

00:01:51.180 on some of the issues that actually don't get talked about.

00:01:53.880 Plus, Francis and I are now both in our 40s.

00:01:56.600 So we need a young person to tell us what's going on with young people.

00:01:59.940 But before we do all that, tell us a little bit about you.

00:02:02.500 Who are you?

00:02:02.960 How are you?

00:02:03.260 Where are you?

00:02:03.720 What's been your journey through life?

00:02:05.300 So I graduated in 2020.

00:02:07.580 I studied politics at uni.

00:02:09.580 And during that first lockdown, I just started to contribute to a couple of online magazines,

00:02:14.720 so places like The Spectator, The New Statesman, The Independent.

00:02:18.980 And initially, I was writing a lot about politics, social justice, activism, feminism, that kind of thing.

00:02:24.760 but I felt that I was getting a little bit caught up in what would get engagement what was kind of

00:02:30.780 trending at the time so I wanted to take some time to think about what do I actually know

00:02:35.840 and can actually give some value on and at the same time I was seeing headlines everywhere for

00:02:42.360 Gen Z's anxiety epidemics rise in depression self-harm suicide that kind of thing so I decided 0.79

00:02:51.280 to make that my focus and I'm currently working on a book which is kind of a deep dive into girls

00:02:57.100 and their mental health um and basically how we got into this mental health crisis and uh I mean

00:03:03.580 one of the things you talk about a lot is young women in particular yeah um what's going on right

00:03:10.200 because we don't know we keep seeing headlines as you say there is mental health crisis you know

00:03:15.840 everyone's got climate anxiety you know I joke about it but you know what I mean like what's

00:03:20.440 going on with your generation so you sound so old i am you've got to embrace the oldness now mate

00:03:26.840 but what is going on well i think there is a mental health crisis i genuinely do i think in

00:03:31.700 the early 2010s there was this spike in anxiety depression other things like eating disorders

00:03:37.420 um and i think at the time a lot of people thought that's just nothing new that's just

00:03:42.320 kind of adolescence and coming of age like you everyone feels a bit anxious has body image issues

00:03:48.580 at that time um but if you look into it the self-harm and suicide rate was also going up at

00:03:53.900 the same time uh massively so like in america between 2012 and 2019 the suicide rate for white

00:04:02.140 middle-aged men increased by three percent but for girls aged 10 to 14 it increased by 138 percent

00:04:09.000 wow so it's not it's beyond the normal experiences of adolescence whatever's happening

00:04:14.440 um but i think what's happening now is you know young people are having all of those

00:04:20.100 age-old feelings of anxiety and body image issues the normal stuff but it's colliding with other

00:04:26.200 things in modern life like social media um consumerism all of these things that are kind

00:04:31.880 of ramping up um and i think it's taking those normal feelings and just exacerbating them

00:04:36.960 to the absolute extremes. 138%? Yeah, yeah. That is absolutely terrifying. And it's awful.

00:04:48.100 Yeah. And how much of this can be blamed on social media, do you think? How much of it can

00:04:53.440 be blamed on the consumerism? How much can be blamed on other factors as well? Well, social

00:04:59.040 media is a bit hard because there's not actually like definitive evidence that it's social media.

00:05:04.300 so some studies show barely any effect of social media other studies show that it's a huge impact

00:05:11.060 but one thing Jonathan Haidt says which I think is important is that when they're looking at

00:05:17.060 studies on social media they often say screen time which kind of lumps in texting and scrolling

00:05:23.800 through Instagram which has different mental health impacts like texting is not that bad for

00:05:28.340 your mental health so I think that's why it comes out as barely any depends who you're texting

00:05:32.760 yes that's true so yeah so there's that so I think that um it's difficult to definitively say

00:05:40.660 but I think if you look at the timeline so mental health started to decline in the early 2010s

00:05:46.620 especially for girls the iPhone came out in 2007 Instagram came out in 2010 you had editing apps

00:05:53.800 like Facetune came out in 2013 Snapchat was doing its AR filters in 2016 so all around that time

00:06:00.960 these things were happening and girls mental health especially was declining so you can say

00:06:05.920 it's things like the climate crisis or the economy that's affecting mental health but

00:06:11.500 why would it be girls and why would it be such a sudden decline at that time and freya you used

00:06:17.680 something oh god i'm sounding so old you the the face moderating app yeah facetune face so explain

00:06:24.660 to people like me who are very old what is this app what does it do what is the purpose of it and

00:06:31.620 what are the effects on young girls so facetune isn't editing out selfie retouching they call it 0.99

00:06:37.840 um and you can basically do anything on it you can tan your skin you can whiten your teeth you

00:06:43.120 can restructure your face they've just introduced a new feature where you can you kind of film

00:06:49.160 yourself doing something like walking around a room you can freeze the frame edit your waist so

00:06:54.800 it's tiny and then that when you play the video that will stay for the whole video and it looks

00:06:58.940 like that's just your body so the technology is just seamless now you can't tell that it's been

00:07:04.640 edited it's been downloaded like 60 million times I think and I think it's something like 75% of

00:07:11.080 girls posting or users posting on Instagram are using Facetune and the funny thing about

00:07:17.140 Facetune is that, you know, it used to be a bit of a secret among teenagers, like they would use it

00:07:23.180 and they wouldn't want other people to know that they're using it. Whereas now it's kind of been

00:07:27.800 rebranded in this whole feminism, self love thing. So Facetune's marketing is very much about

00:07:33.880 self expression and girls self love. So for example, on International Women's Day, they posted

00:07:39.440 something like selfie, selfie editing is a powerful act of self expression. And it was to celebrate

00:07:45.680 feminism so the actual app has become like the act of touching retouching your selfies has become 0.98

00:07:53.420 feminist so pretending to look in a way that you don't actually look is now empowering yes yeah 0.99

00:07:59.940 it's completely changed well that's what all the celebrities say i mean chloe kardashian she 0.79

00:08:05.300 literally facetuned her own newborn baby when it was born and she calls it life-changing you've got

00:08:12.460 there's YouTubers online who there's this guy James Charles who's got 23 million followers

00:08:17.620 and he does this series where he gets like pre-teen teen girls to send in selfies and he

00:08:25.280 will edit them so he'll give them like a nose job contour them put makeup on them and all the while

00:08:31.360 he's saying oh this is nothing there's nothing wrong with fixing insecurities you know this is

00:08:35.380 self-expression and all of the comments are like this is so educational this is empowering so it's

00:08:41.360 really interesting to me that it's been completely rebranded. That's really interesting because

00:08:45.700 before the only people who could do that were the vogues of the world. Exactly. And they would take

00:08:50.820 a celebrity and they would slim them down and trim their waist and whatever else and then present 1.00

00:08:55.100 an unrealistic representation of what that person looked like. Yeah. But now it's democratised it,

00:09:01.880 everyone can do it. Yeah, I think there was in the early 2000s like a backlash to the

00:09:06.920 the photo retouching in magazines and you know we had growing mental health awareness since then

00:09:12.340 and I think corporations had to come up with an answer and their answer is to continue

00:09:17.160 profiting off of female insecurities but now wrap it up in feminist packaging. But then there's also 0.97

00:09:22.920 the flip side which when we see morbidly obese people on particularly women in Calvin Klein

00:09:30.220 adverts. Now I've got no problem with a more realistic representation of what a woman's body 1.00

00:09:36.280 looks like I mean mate given the obesity crisis that is what a woman's body looks like yeah actually 1.00

00:09:41.340 I saw a lot of those pictures in New York so you're right uh but you just think what is going

00:09:46.260 on when we just flip from too thin to endangering life well both extremes endangering life yeah I

00:09:54.020 think just in so many aspects of life girls are just being lied to and kind of manipulated in the 1.00

00:10:00.080 marketing I think a lot of things now are saying the opposite of what they are so editing your

00:10:05.640 face has become empowerment self-expression it's become a way to express how confident you are which

00:10:11.820 doesn't make any sense and then other things like obesity being healthy um and things like you know

00:10:17.680 social media companies saying they want to connect to you feminists saying that it's you know 1.00

00:10:22.600 liberating to sexualize yourself online there's just so many different messages that i think are

00:10:27.840 just lying to girls, ultimately. And I mean, reading your articles, I get the sense that 0.95

00:10:35.520 you're someone who thinks about these things quite deeply, actually. So at the core of it,

00:10:39.900 what do you think is going on in society? Well, I think for the mental health crisis 0.83

00:10:46.160 and for young people, I think, like I said, I think they're having age-old feelings that

00:10:52.080 everyone has, the insecurity, the anxiety. And the things that are happening today, I don't think

00:10:58.480 that modern life is just magnifying them. I think companies are tapping into them and exploiting

00:11:03.520 them for profit. So I think when it comes to Gen Z, the worse our mental health gets, the more 1.00

00:11:09.980 companies can sell us solutions to our stress and anxiety and insecurity, loneliness, whatever it is.

00:11:15.980 and I think for girls today they're stuck with this continuous conveyor belt of you know apps

00:11:22.420 and products and procedures that are going to make us feel better but I think a lot of the time

00:11:27.700 they're just kind of superficial short-term solutions you know we're told if you feel

00:11:31.800 insecure you can get Botox if you feel lonely you can get a friendship swiping app if you feel

00:11:38.200 anxious you can download this therapy app there's just something to fix everything for us

00:11:44.280 and I think that's why Gen Z are struggling 1.00

00:11:47.880 and they're feeling so lost

00:11:49.180 is because all of those normal emotions

00:11:51.840 that you feel are being tapped into for profit.

00:11:55.540 And Freya, is that the reason 0.54

00:11:57.300 why we've seen an explosion in plastic surgery

00:12:01.020 amongst young women?

00:12:02.040 I see young women in their mid-twenties 0.96

00:12:04.660 and they've had work done, lip fillers.

00:12:07.840 It seems that practically...

00:12:09.400 I sound old, do I?

00:12:11.620 That is true, mate.

00:12:12.980 but the lip filler thing I just find horrifying I know I think that is the result of uh the New

00:12:20.080 Yorker did a piece on it called Instagram face which is this idea that there's the kind of

00:12:24.640 perfect female face which is kind of like it's basically Kim Kardashian it's like the kind of

00:12:29.660 ethnically ambiguous big lips uh cheekbones are um all contoured everything and I think girls have 1.00

00:12:38.000 been exposed to that so much that they they think that's the kind of ideal beauty standard but the

00:12:44.560 sad thing about it is it's not girls trying to look perfect anymore it's girls trying to look 0.98

00:12:49.100 perfect like a computer generated image or like the face tuned version of kim kardashian and i

00:12:56.320 think girls are then trying to replicate that filtered face in real life which requires a lot 1.00

00:13:00.700 of botox fillers everything like that like um plastic surgeons are talking about this thing

00:13:06.660 snapchat dysmorphia which is basically that women used to come in with pictures of celebrities that 0.83

00:13:12.600 they wanted to look like but now they come in with pictures of themselves with a snapchat filter on

00:13:17.060 or facetuned and say make me look like that so i think it's definitely yeah the result of social

00:13:23.040 media creating unrealistic beauty expectations that are just kind of robotic cyborgian look

00:13:29.980 that you just can't replicate without filters and where does feminism come into all of this 1.00

00:13:35.600 because you've written about this a fair bit i take you're not a massive fan of of it or some

00:13:40.500 elements of it yeah i'd say the well i think it's become some of mainstream feminism it's almost 1.00

00:13:48.880 like hyper sexualizing girls kind of pandering to the male gaze doing everything that they 1.00

00:13:54.540 that women were trying to fight against um whether it's telling us that you know it's 0.97

00:14:00.300 empowering to yeah sexualize yourself online or edit yourself or uh hookup culture whatever it is

00:14:07.640 um i feel like it's all been placed under the umbrella of feminism and watered it down completely 1.00

00:14:13.380 and i think yeah girls are just being lied to about what is um you know beneficial for them 1.00

00:14:19.020 what's going to be good for their mental health and uh tell our audience what is hookup culture

00:14:24.360 because we've it's not we've discussed it briefly with louise perry and a couple of others but

00:14:28.480 we've never really talked about in depth what does that look like well it's a bit difficult

00:14:33.940 because kind of two things are happening there's this rise in people having casual sex but there's

00:14:39.840 also a decline in sex in general so gen z are having less sex than any generation before us

00:14:45.680 at the same age we're less likely to go on dates we're less likely to have had a relationship

00:14:49.240 so it's not like it's kind of this crazy hookup culture that everyone's engaging in

00:14:53.980 But I think what is happening is you go on a dating app and you're basically competing in a market and you're looking for engagement and swipes just like you are on social media.

00:15:05.500 And I think for girls to stand out in that market and to make sure that you're getting matches, it's almost like you feel you have to engage in casual sex or commodify yourself, objectify yourself online.

00:15:19.300 So I think when I talk about hook-up culture,

00:15:21.540 I mean the pressure on girls to engage in casual sex 0.77

00:15:26.980 to get a relationship.

00:15:28.200 I think that's definitely happening now,

00:15:29.920 but it doesn't mean that we're having way more casual sex

00:15:33.080 because we're not. 0.87

00:15:35.000 And why aren't your generation having as much sex 0.86

00:15:37.900 as previous generations?

00:15:39.280 I think it's a mix of things.

00:15:40.740 I think that obviously we spend more time on screens,

00:15:43.480 so we are more cautious about going out and doing things in the real world even just making friends

00:15:51.400 so something that's like a sexual encounter is just seems really uncomfortable for people

00:15:56.980 and I also think Gen Z are just quite risk averse about relationships in general I mean 1.00

00:16:03.780 whether it's from you know dating apps or online porn or those things or whether it's just seeing

00:16:09.940 our parents split up you know one in three gen z see their parents split by the time they're 16

00:16:14.920 so i can see how we'd be a bit more cautious about dating and and getting involved with that

00:16:21.680 that's really sad yeah it's really sad yeah and the pandemic must have played a really must have

00:16:28.620 played its own part in this surely yeah i think all of these things were happening before so the

00:16:33.520 anxiety the spending too long inside all of that so jonathan height said that teens were already

00:16:39.460 socially distanced by 2019 so the pandemic didn't really make a big of an impact for that but I

00:16:46.020 think for girls especially the pandemic was really bad because girls really depend on that face-to-face

00:16:51.580 contact whereas boys kind of they bond through like side-to-side contact stuff like shared

00:16:56.920 activities like video gaming for example so they spent a lot of lockdown doing that talking to

00:17:02.060 their friends gaming whereas girls were just kind of passively scrolling through Instagram 0.80

00:17:06.700 comparing themselves to everybody else on their phone.

00:17:10.280 And we saw this rise in school-aged girls having depressive episodes,

00:17:14.760 girls being taken to emergency departments for their mental health.

00:17:18.300 So I think, yeah, these things that were all happening before

00:17:21.100 were just exacerbated by the pandemic.

00:17:22.880 And now, you know, we're even further back trying to solve them.

00:17:28.120 And Farah, what impact is porn making upon your generation?

00:17:31.720 um i think it's a mix of things and they're different for girls and boys so i think

00:17:37.640 a lot of it for boys is that instant gratification thing you know they don't need to go out and

00:17:42.620 be in an uncomfortable conversation or try and win over a girl anymore because they've got it 0.99

00:17:48.680 on their phone um so i think there's that but i think for girls it creates a lot of anxiety and

00:17:54.200 paranoia about relationships you know i don't think it's normal to know that your partner or

00:17:59.840 you know all of these boys have access to you know infinite images of women all the time I think

00:18:06.560 that does play a part in girls anxiety and maybe stress about relationships attachment issues that 0.99

00:18:13.480 kind of thing and I imagine there's also a thing about expectations like what boys expect from

00:18:18.300 their sexual partner yeah and I think you know I think a lot of girls have grown up as well thinking

00:18:23.700 that they need to be really sexual that they need to be kind of like cold and detached and

00:18:28.780 that's how they're gonna find a partner today and the kind of feminists and celebrities are 1.00

00:18:34.380 kind of enforcing that saying you know it's empowering to be yeah just engaging in casual

00:18:40.120 sex and um kind of being provocative online all of these things and I think you know for some girls

00:18:47.000 I think you know for some girls that's okay some girls don't seem to be affected by that but for a 0.99

00:18:52.100 lot of girls that does affect their sense of self-worth there was a study in the Wall Street 0.99

00:18:56.220 journal which showed that 60% of girls at an outpatient clinic for eating disorders, depression

00:19:02.140 and anxiety had posted sexualised content on TikTok. So you know for some girls there is 1.00

00:19:09.080 evidence that it really does mess with our you know anxiety, our sense of self-worth.

00:19:14.320 Yeah I can really see that and also as well does it make the because the whole point obviously of

00:19:21.260 sex is procreation but it's also about connection between two partners. Does that mean that there's

00:19:25.820 no or there's a lack of connection there simply because people are just trying to recreate what

00:19:31.780 they see on a screen yeah i think romance in general has just been kind of commodified i think

00:19:38.440 that you know you go on like a dating app and it's like swiping through products and you're

00:19:43.880 advertising yourself like a product you can filter through like you're looking in like a catalog for

00:19:48.940 something um and i think it's really kind of romance and intimacy is just entwined with

00:19:54.960 consumer culture and it's taken out all of the feelings from it all of the kind of excitement

00:20:00.400 and it's made it very cold and transactional and I think I think a lot of girls struggle with that

00:20:06.060 and I think boys as well um you know we've grown up on things like Instagram you know selling

00:20:12.040 ourselves online marketing ourselves so for us it seems normal but when you kind of zoom out and

00:20:18.100 think about it an app like Tinder is really weird that you're advertising yourself you're waiting

00:20:23.020 for people to give you feedback and you're tying your self-worth to things like super likes and

00:20:29.280 how many chats you have you know it's it's clearly not good for mental health and is there a like

00:20:34.980 another way I suppose because I imagine if you're saying well boys are like they're not going out

00:20:42.440 they're not going to approach a girl in a coffee shop or in a pub or whatever as they might have

00:20:47.480 done in the past then I suppose someone like you I don't know what your relationship status is but

00:20:51.800 if you if you're looking for for for a guy yeah to to come and approach you but none of the guys

00:20:57.140 will yeah yeah you can you can you can not be on tinder if you want but then no one's going to

00:21:01.540 approach it yeah exactly it's that thing again you kind of forced to and i think even things like

00:21:07.480 yeah like the casual sex the dating apps if you want to meet someone it's really difficult to

00:21:12.720 not be part of that i think it's easier for girls i think for boys uh it's becoming less like

00:21:19.660 especially with the stuff like sexual harassment you know there's a lot of pressure on on guys to

00:21:24.920 get it right if they're going to go and approach a girl but I think girls are kind of noticing it 0.77

00:21:29.700 as well there's less uh you know guys shooting their shot I suppose I think people are just so

00:21:36.240 um consuming things online online content and kind of convincing themselves they can do it that way

00:21:42.620 that they're just never gonna put it's such an uncomfortable situation why would you put

00:21:46.760 yourself in it when you can just dm someone on instagram and we're talking about this online

00:21:52.600 culture and then for boys they they have the incel community which they're demonized actually

00:21:59.520 if i'm being quite honest where it's just basically men who have decided to drop out

00:22:04.340 depression we had william costler on to talk about it was a brilliant interview

00:22:08.300 is there a similar equivalent for girls the people who just don't want to take part in society and 0.99

00:22:15.000 see this and think, you know what, I don't want anything to do with this. I'm out.

00:22:18.960 Yeah, I think for girls, it's anxiety. You know, girls are driving the rise in anti-anxiety 0.96

00:22:24.000 medication. We report having higher rates of anxiety, depression, eating disorders. So I think

00:22:30.120 for us, there's this real kind of rise in neuroticism and worrying about things like

00:22:37.040 relationships. And yet girls aren't going on dates and they're delaying things like their 1.00

00:22:42.140 first relationship and I think you know we don't have as many developmental experiences we're

00:22:48.260 spending a lot of time engaging with online content staying inside and so something like

00:22:53.900 a relationship just seems like this huge uncomfortable thing and it's a mission as

00:22:59.460 the kids say yeah and I think to them it's it's almost not worth it you know they for your

00:23:06.080 generation that would kind of be part of coming of age but I think you know we we've got it all

00:23:11.500 online. So yeah, there's the incels for the boys who are, you know, they're not doing it because

00:23:17.820 they don't want to approach a girl. But I think there's the girls who are just so anxious about

00:23:21.220 the possibility of a relationship that they don't even want to go there. I mean, we're having a very

00:23:26.900 sad conversation, if I'm going to be honest with you, because one of the things that strikes me

00:23:31.460 about this is the instinct to find your partner is so strong in human beings, as it is in all

00:23:40.580 animals really so to be able to override that to the level that you're talking about i mean these

00:23:45.740 are powerful forces that are at play here yeah i think well gen z in general just having less

00:23:51.280 far less experiences so like when your generation was young like my parents talk about being so

00:23:57.300 excited to be independent so excited to move out get a driver's license you know gen z aren't 1.00

00:24:02.540 driving we're not getting part-time jobs we're not going on dates we're not moving out so we're

00:24:08.020 just taking much longer to reach those traditional milestones of growing up but I think for girls

00:24:14.380 that's especially troubling because the more you delay those things women are also delaying 1.00

00:24:19.460 marriage and motherhood in record numbers and we know that you've only got a short window of time

00:24:24.980 to do that and I think girls everything is getting delayed and it also creates a lot of different

00:24:30.360 collisions so for example girls are now hitting puberty much earlier so around age six some girls

00:24:37.500 and they don't know why yes six six jesus christ they think it's either obesity stress or chemicals

00:24:45.480 or something like that um but you've got that happening so when you have early puberty you're

00:24:51.300 more at risk of anxiety depression all of those things anyway and you're vulnerable to sexual

00:24:57.840 harassment predators that kind of thing but you've got that now with the delayed adulthood so they

00:25:03.800 don't have the developmental experiences to understand it or process it and so i think we're

00:25:08.920 in this really dangerous position where girls they're kind of overexposed to all this adult

00:25:14.540 content online they're developing much earlier so there are all the risks of that but they don't

00:25:20.560 have the life experience or the maturity to handle it i think that is contributing to the

00:25:26.320 to the mental health problems so i guess the obvious question given the sad conversation

00:25:33.100 we're having so far is what what can we do as as individuals first of all because we can talk about

00:25:38.780 societal solutions and they also matter of course but at the end of the day most people listening

00:25:42.940 to this are thinking well what do i do or what do i do for my daughter or my son or whatever like

00:25:47.840 what what can be done about this i think well i wouldn't say you know i have all of the advice

00:25:52.560 because yeah i'm not an expert in it but i think realizing and recognizing what's going on is the

00:25:57.900 most important thing so I think you know there's a lot of like well-intentioned parents who are

00:26:02.980 letting their kids on TikTok for three hours a day thinking oh you know my daughter's not going 1.00

00:26:07.720 to view harmful content she's not going to speak to predators or anything like that but I think

00:26:11.960 there's a lot of things going on that are hard to see and measure so the effect of social media on

00:26:18.420 the development of your identity on your sense of self-worth you can't really see that and I think

00:26:24.700 you know the one thing parents can do is learn more about what tiktok is what technologies their

00:26:31.640 daughter's using what kind of culture they're immersed in what kind of content they consume

00:26:36.280 and learning about it if you had a teenage child now would you let them on social media

00:26:41.900 no i wouldn't either no i wouldn't um and i think but i think a lot of parents don't realize what

00:26:50.140 what it's actually doing so i don't think you know they're to blame that they're letting them

00:26:54.220 on social media and also it's it is their entire social world now um so you would be cutting them

00:27:01.020 off from you know popularity and speaking to friends but i think you know a lot of parents

00:27:07.440 let their kids on social media and they do things like screen time restrictions but they don't

00:27:11.580 realize how tech savvy kids are they can just get past it like they can change the time on the phone

00:27:17.120 they can hack the apple id they can you know if they want to view anorexia content on tiktok they

00:27:22.780 can spell the hashtag slightly wrong and bypass that so i think for parents it's about um becoming

00:27:30.720 as tech savvy as their kids yeah that's optimistic yeah yeah do you think this is where i am and this

00:27:39.460 is probably where i'm starting to get more conservative as in ban this filth i do you think

00:27:45.320 do you think that and look we disagree on this and we've had a discussion about it and i still

00:27:51.360 stand by it i don't understand why if you're under the age of 16 you need to be on social media

00:27:55.960 no we disagree on that no no as in banning it i think you shouldn't be allowed i think it should

00:28:00.860 be a government by law yeah well the age now is 13 i think that's too young tell me what you think

00:28:07.240 no i do think that's too young i think it's something like a third of all tiktok users

00:28:12.480 are thought to be 14 or younger um and so you know it's not just i think some parents think

00:28:19.020 oh it's yeah they might see something distressing or yeah a predator might talk to them but I think

00:28:26.520 you know if you think how young 13 is your brain is literally forming it's the most vulnerable

00:28:31.640 years of your life and everything that happens to you kind of defines your identity as you move

00:28:37.120 forward and so I think when you think about it like that you know in the most vulnerable years

00:28:41.500 of their life they're seeing content that's not just um not just constant reels of content but

00:28:47.320 it's personalized to play on their unique fears and insecurities all of the time. And I think

00:28:53.520 parents don't really realize that's what's going on. So, you know, if you're like a 12 year old

00:28:58.640 girl who say you feel insecure about your nose, you will get content on TikTok for rhinoplasty

00:29:05.220 filters or editing apps or TikTok plastic surgeons. So it's very specific to the unique

00:29:11.860 child. And I think that's unlike any kind of advertising we've ever had before. But I don't

00:29:19.020 think parents, I don't think many parents realise how quickly your kind of algorithm can change

00:29:25.900 to reflect things like your fears. You don't even have to like the content. If you just hover over

00:29:31.400 it, you'll get similar stuff all of the time. And do you think that's part of the reason why

00:29:36.480 we're seeing an explosion in gender dysphoria amongst young women? Yeah I mean I think you 1.00

00:29:43.640 know any kind of dysphoria you can see how social media would exacerbate it because you're kind of

00:29:49.080 splitting yourself into your real offline you and then this online persona all of the time

00:29:54.680 and you're also seeing a version of yourself refracted back by targeted ads and algorithms

00:29:59.740 and you know we're not just seeing the rise in gender dysphoria it's also things like body

00:30:04.220 dysmorphia dissociative identity disorder which is like the multiple identities um derealization

00:30:11.400 dissociation all of these things where girls describe feeling detached from their body and

00:30:16.720 just separate from who they are um and i think that is because of social media i think

00:30:22.380 it's unnatural to have the real you and then the you that you're selling and performing for the

00:30:28.440 market um and i don't i'm not saying that that causes gender dysphoria but i think if you already

00:30:33.680 have those feelings it would take them to the absolute extreme. Yeah well a few days ago I mean

00:30:39.740 it depends on how we release episodes but we interviewed Matt Goodman recently he does a lot

00:30:44.140 of research on your generation in particular and one of the things that I was curious to ask you

00:30:50.040 about is when we asked him our final question as we always do he said like watch out for this and

00:30:56.240 Eric Kaufman's talked about this as well there's a big difference between girls and boys in Gen Z

00:31:01.900 in terms of their political views and girls are moving way to the left 0.98

00:31:07.140 whereas boys are, you know, boys are boys.

00:31:10.380 How do you take that?

00:31:11.160 Yeah.

00:31:11.960 Well, I don't know.

00:31:13.440 Are they, I still, when I meet young men, they're still,

00:31:18.860 I still think of most of them as woke, to be honest.

00:31:21.660 But what's going on there?

00:31:26.360 Do you have any thoughts?

00:31:27.520 You don't have to have thoughts.

00:31:28.220 No, yeah, I think that, you know, girls, 0.99

00:31:30.860 i think for the average kind of gen z person especially a girl that you know they want to be

00:31:34.520 compassionate and tolerant and i think there's a lot of people who think gen z just want to divide

00:31:39.940 you know they're they're woke because they want to tear everything down but i think if you take

00:31:44.580 the average young girl that's not why she's woke she's woke because she's seeing all of this stuff

00:31:49.820 and being told that that's the moral way to be and so she's going along with it because she wants to

00:31:55.840 be a good person I think you know we have to think about Gen Z as you know they're young but

00:32:02.340 they're also you know they want to rebel against previous generations they want to be more

00:32:08.220 progressive they want to do things differently so I think that is all normal and you can see why

00:32:13.880 girls would go along with it because you know we're more likely to be agreeable you know that 1.00

00:32:18.920 ties in with political correctness we're more risk averse so things like safetyism coddling

00:32:24.560 you know all of those things kind of play on our vulnerabilities so i can see why young girls have 1.00

00:32:31.240 those opinions but i think it's about giving them an alternative um well i agree completely as you

00:32:36.480 know but why aren't you woke um why are you i don't know no i'm not i think i'm just i'm a bit

00:32:44.240 shy and an overthinker and i think i spent a lot of time just observing people at uni their

00:32:49.300 different opinions and thinking about it and i just sort of came to the conclusion there's sort

00:32:54.320 of the woke left and the authentic left. The authentic left, you know, want to uphold human

00:33:00.940 rights, regulate free markets, but they want to have freedom of speech. And then there's this new

00:33:06.060 left that think that the way to do that is policing speech and, you know, focusing on this

00:33:10.480 identity debates and the kind of intricacies of language. And I suppose I just thought that's

00:33:17.120 probably not the way to do it. But I also don't think that I'm unique in that. I do think there

00:33:21.880 are a lot of Gen Z who are not woke. If you speak to, you know, the people that I know,

00:33:27.240 I don't know anyone with opinions like that. And from all over different backgrounds, not

00:33:31.300 just from uni. And I think there's almost a caricature that all of Gen Z are extremely

00:33:37.160 woke. We've all got these really, I don't think I'm some big exception. But obviously

00:33:42.260 there's the vocal minority on Twitter. Yeah.

00:33:45.300 The other thing that I've noticed with Gen Z is I compare it, so I, sounding old again,

00:33:50.860 so when I came of age, it was the 90s, it was Britpop, there was the music, there was a culture,

00:33:56.520 there was a fashion, there was a hair, it was about going out, lads and ladettes, drinking,

00:34:02.140 getting messed up, taking as much drugs and drink as you can because that's how you had a good time

00:34:06.960 or that's what we believed at the time. I don't see a sort of a subculture or a culture within

00:34:14.060 Gen Z that when you look back at the punks or rock and roll and all of these different things 0.95

00:34:19.700 or even emos I remember when I started teaching in mid to late noughties there was the emos and

00:34:26.000 the emo bands and they had their own look but I never really noticed that no with young people

00:34:31.620 what's going on I think it's again the social media algorithms and targeted ads you know you

00:34:37.900 kind of you end up consuming so much of the same content and being kind of you know you're targeted

00:34:44.520 via gender age group that kind of thing so you've got young girls all being fed the same or similar

00:34:50.200 stuff um constantly reinforcing how you should look you know how you could be more desirable

00:34:56.280 attractive productive happier all of the time and you're being served kind of templates for that and

00:35:03.400 i think people end up the same so you have instagram face everyone starts looking the same

00:35:08.480 everyone starts having the same ambitions you know most girls something like 57 percent of 1.00

00:35:14.040 gen z girls want to be influencers now you know you see even outfits everyone's wearing the same 1.00

00:35:18.780 outfit because the kind of same videos are getting pushed to all of us all of the time and so i think

00:35:25.360 there are the subcultures but they're getting swallowed up by what the you know the companies

00:35:31.860 want to push more of and you end up becoming defined by you know the stuff that comes up on

00:35:37.180 your for you page and the content you consume um and so i think we're all becoming kind of similar

00:35:42.540 in fashion sense and things like that and is is there a culture where you would go out to clubs

00:35:47.300 and bars and watch bands and talk about new bands or music or is that is that kind of i love to smile

00:35:53.180 on her face this old man is talking at me about things that have never happened well there is but

00:35:57.620 i think in general gen z are just doing less having less experiences we're just less likely

00:36:03.380 to go out and do things like this and obviously there's loads of people who are still doing stuff

00:36:07.680 like that but I think for the general kind of pre-teens teenagers there's just not really the

00:36:14.300 desire to go and do those things because you can get you know if you want a sense of community you

00:36:18.700 can get it online if you want to find new friends you can get them online if you you know even things

00:36:24.320 like influencers with influencers you can kind of um you know have that sense of connection from

00:36:31.380 your bedroom and they're using all of these kind of parasocial marketing tactics to get you to think

00:36:36.580 that you're their friend and you end up kind of intimately following the lives of these strangers

00:36:41.540 watching them go to bands then hang out with their friends join our locals guys yeah i think

00:36:47.980 young girls especially are doing that a lot and i think influencers tap into that kind of loneliness

00:36:53.440 and anxiety and then they use it in their marketing so they say things you know they call you your

00:36:58.540 friend they show their intimate moments in their life so you feel like they're being real and

00:37:03.340 vulnerable but often they're just trying to sell you something or get engagement so it's it's quite

00:37:08.460 sad really yeah and it's it's not a real connection no online communities i mean look you know people

00:37:15.760 make friends online i don't want to denigrate that or people meeting their partners online

00:37:19.620 but it's not like having a real group of friends you know it's not like having a family it's not

00:37:25.960 like meeting people it's not but it's completely synthetic yeah but you get sort of a quick hit

00:37:31.600 of that sense of connection and you get like you know someone replies to a comment and they relate

00:37:37.640 to you and they are going through the same thing or yeah if you if you feel like you're struggling

00:37:42.280 with your mental health you can go online and there's a community for that exact mental health

00:37:45.880 problem that exact issue you're going through you know it's very attractive for lonely kind of

00:37:50.940 awkward girls to want to you know find their connection that way um so i can see why people 0.99

00:37:59.020 do it but i think that kind of instant hit wears off and in the end it is just a superficial

00:38:04.300 community and often those communities will drop you as soon as you don't meet you know what

00:38:10.420 they're talking about if it's like um a social justice community for example if you change your

00:38:15.560 mind you're no longer going to be accepted um so i think young people likewise if you're an incel

00:38:20.800 and you're like, oh, you know what, I've actually decided I like girls. 0.68

00:38:24.640 Yeah, exactly.

00:38:25.640 So I think part of helping Gen Z's mental health, also the woke stuff, 0.86

00:38:30.440 is just getting them to engage with people and have more experiences

00:38:33.860 because I think the more you do that, something like the woke worldview

00:38:38.180 just falls apart because you realise that people from all different backgrounds, 1.00

00:38:42.240 we've all got different traumas, we've all been through similar things

00:38:45.480 and the kind of idea that you know we're all in distinct identity groups it just doesn't work

00:38:52.100 when you go out and actually engage with the world so i think a lot of gen z's problems would

00:38:55.840 be solved through more experiences and one thing you alluded to earlier which is something that

00:39:01.280 we've talked to death on the show but i still think it needs talking about is the breakdown

00:39:05.160 of the family and the impact that has yeah and that's just seems to be accelerating and

00:39:10.620 Acceleration and acceleration.

00:39:11.660 Yeah, well, I wrote an article about the glamorizing of divorce.

00:39:18.380 I'd seen everywhere, like The Guardian was talking about the joy of divorce parties.

00:39:25.680 Vogue was talking about this Valentine's Day, let's hear it for divorce. 1.00

00:39:29.860 The New York Times called divorce a radical act of self-love.

00:39:33.140 So I was seeing all of this.

00:39:34.660 I was also researching Gen Z's mental health crisis 0.98

00:39:37.940 and reading through all of these reports.

00:39:39.300 And all of the reports would talk about things like the economy, the climate crisis, being reasons for Gen Z's anxiety, which just doesn't make sense to me.

00:39:49.540 I don't think a 13-year-old cares more about the climate or the economy than if their parents are talking.

00:39:55.640 I think a lot of it is closer to home. 0.86

00:39:58.900 And I think there's this denial going on about it because, you know, we've got the most mentally ill generation on record.

00:40:05.580 and family breakdown is just barely mentioned even though we know that having divorced parents

00:40:11.480 leads to you're more vulnerable to anxiety depression eating disorders substance abuse

00:40:16.940 there was even a study that showed that it has parental divorce has more of a negative impact

00:40:22.680 on educational attainment than parental death so we know that it has a huge impact and yet

00:40:28.440 it isn't factored into um the mental health crisis and why sorry francis i just want to

00:40:33.680 finished at this point and why do you think that is Fred because I know that like in our day it was

00:40:40.240 you can't talk about the breakdown of the family because you're demonizing hard-working single

00:40:44.320 moms that's the argument right is that still the argument or is there a different or is it or is

00:40:48.720 being like is every form of family quote unquote they're all equally valid now is yeah I think it's

00:40:55.720 a mix of things I think I think a lot of it is just this idea in modern life that everything

00:41:00.460 should be fun and easy all the time and any kind of responsibility is restrictive and inconvenient

00:41:06.920 and so I think a lot of parents kind of lived by that they kind of were conditioned by society to

00:41:15.700 think you know the ultimate freedom is your own happiness I think for some for some marriages

00:41:20.940 obviously there's reasons for divorce but I think that was also happening and I think now we're

00:41:25.820 seeing the consequences of that. And I think a lot of parents are still maybe in denial about

00:41:31.440 the impact that it's had, because it was something like they asked children of divorce how it

00:41:37.240 affected them. And parents, four out of five parents said that their children were fine with

00:41:42.360 it. Whereas literally 75% of the children had had things like anxiety, depression,

00:41:48.860 eating disorders, substance abuse. It's a hard thing to admit, of course, especially if you

00:41:53.140 if you felt that the divorce was you know important or necessary or it was genuinely you know people

00:41:57.380 don't always can't always keep it up but it's just we've seen over the last 60 70 years that

00:42:03.300 rate has skyrocketed in every western society i think it's too close to home for people because

00:42:08.160 if you're talking about it everyone knows someone who's gone through a divorce or their parents have

00:42:13.220 or so it's really hard to talk about and it's much easier to look at things like the financial crash

00:42:18.120 or the climate whereas I think for young people their world is their friends and family

00:42:23.040 it's who's close to them and I think something like divorce makes much more sense to me why you

00:42:29.900 would feel anxious than something far away like the climate crisis and what is what is your

00:42:36.300 generation's attitude to motherhood do you do the girls still want to get married do they still 0.92

00:42:42.200 believe in that married you know having two kids a family or are they kind of more seeking

00:42:47.520 careers and all that path? Yeah well I think it's half of women are now childless by their 30th

00:42:54.880 birthday in England and Wales and there's loads of reasons for that obviously you know decline

00:43:00.340 of religion feminism but I think there's been an attitude shift in Gen Z through my experiences I

00:43:07.260 don't know any women in their early 20s who are excited about motherhood who talk about it who

00:43:13.180 have it in their vision I think we're either terrified of it or we don't want to or we're

00:43:18.820 putting off as long as you're terrified of it uh I don't think I am no I'm sorry you said we are

00:43:25.680 and I said yeah like I think what's the source of that it's that kind of message again from society

00:43:32.320 that you should only pursue things that make you comfortable and happy and I think we've kind of

00:43:38.660 emphasized the personal discomfort of it you know everything you'll sacrifice you know we've grown

00:43:44.100 up in societies with more comfort and convenience than ever before so it makes sense that we would

00:43:48.380 be more risk averse about anything uncomfortable um like if you go on child free tiktok it has like

00:43:56.420 780 million views and it's mostly girls pretty much all girls talking viscerally against motherhood

00:44:04.820 you know there's one that does a free birth control series where she just shows you like 1.00

00:44:10.660 the most horrifying aspects of motherhood whether it's losing sleep or your child being sick on you

00:44:16.100 all of these things and all of the comments are just like they don't even understand why you'd

00:44:22.240 ever do that because they just think oh it's all about personal discomfort and to them it seems

00:44:28.760 puzzling why you would want to have children because it just gets in the way of that so much

00:44:33.860 but I think it's kind of sad because I think a lot of Gen Z will miss out or delay something

00:44:39.340 meaningful for their own personal discomfort so they can live their best life and I think it might

00:44:45.080 backfire. Do you think it's part of the reason it's a whole generation which has essentially 0.68

00:44:50.260 had their brains hacked to believe that instant gratification is the best form of gratification

00:44:56.160 and children are not instantly gratifying a lot of the time yeah I think yeah any of these

00:45:03.480 meaningful things that where you have to your gratification is delayed you have to compromise

00:45:08.560 and sacrifice I think as a whole we find those things uh much more daunting because we've had

00:45:15.460 comfort and convenience at our fingertips you know anything we want we can kind of have much

00:45:20.600 quicker than your generations did you know you'd have to if you wanted to speak to a girl you'd

00:45:25.320 have to get the courage to do it if you wanted to get a job you'd have to get the courage to go in

00:45:30.820 and ask about it you know all of these things have been made much more convenient which is good

00:45:35.480 but then I think we've developed this irrational fear of things like discomfort and sacrifice

00:45:41.460 and I think that's why part of why we're seeing decline in motherhood marriage because those

00:45:47.900 things do come with with compromise and discomfort and we've seen the rise of Andrew Tate and I've

00:45:55.360 talked with a lot of people and a lot of them people have been my age or older about it and

00:45:59.180 they talk about it why do you think he's become such a huge figure to young men and boys in

00:46:06.760 particular and what impact is that having amongst women of your generation? I think for boys they're 0.66

00:46:12.460 hearing the same messages over and over again which is obviously the kind of demonising

00:46:19.140 masculinity saying you need to become more sensitive, you need to be almost more like women 1.00

00:46:24.620 in the way that you think about things and approach things and I think you know men tend to

00:46:30.220 just process their emotions differently and think about things differently you know it doesn't make

00:46:34.320 us make them wrong but I think now we're almost telling men that all of the ways they do it are

00:46:40.220 toxic or um too blunt or so they're trying to kind of become more feminine um and so I think 0.96

00:46:47.580 someone like Andrew Tate comes along and he has a masculine approach to it quite heavy-handed and a

00:46:52.660 bit blunt but I think for men that's appealing because it's the same with girls you know they're

00:46:58.160 being lied to quite often and kind of convinced that there's something wrong with them

00:47:03.860 and then you have someone come along and say oh well if you have these masculine traits then it's

00:47:09.540 a good thing you can be strong you can do this whatever um so i can see why that's appealing

00:47:13.980 and i think yeah i think yeah yeah no well it makes sense and i said it at the time what i

00:47:20.800 find very puzzling although it's not puzzling i think the answer is quite obvious is like

00:47:24.200 whenever anyone comes along who uh taps into that frustration that young men feel about like

00:47:33.020 this is how I am but I'm being told that the way that I am is wrong right whether it's a Jordan

00:47:38.100 Peterson or an Andrew Tate who who I have my reservations about no one ever goes why is that

00:47:43.360 no one ever goes like why why am I doing this yeah what are they lacking exactly they're filling a

00:47:48.580 vacuum yeah I don't know I think yeah it's just we hear the same messages over and over again

00:47:54.140 and when someone has something different to say it's really appealing um and there's there's

00:47:59.280 probably stuff within what he's saying that is useful that boys should be listening to but we

00:48:04.260 kind of need to listen as well and figure out what that is i think andrew tate is a very good

00:48:09.560 example of what happens when there are not enough healthy role models yeah so someone who is as out

00:48:16.680 there as he is will come along and hoover up their attention because no one else is speaking to that

00:48:20.860 audience and they give people guidelines to follow like he'll say this is what you need to do to be

00:48:27.320 man and then they've kind of got markers to check off whereas you know we're living in these consumer

00:48:33.000 cultures without you know the decline of religion and things like that we don't have those set

00:48:37.500 guidelines of how to come of age what gives us purpose what we should be following so when

00:48:42.560 someone comes along and says oh this is how you live a happier life things like that then people

00:48:47.260 are going to listen and as well when you think about the fact that the divorce rate is what it

00:48:51.780 is a lot of boys are growing up there's no male figure in their household they go to school most

00:48:57.220 of their teachers are women they're surrounded by women education has become more and more

00:49:01.940 feminized so traditional male behavioral types like boisterousness you know wanting to be

00:49:07.600 physically active are actively looked down upon then someone comes in to give what in their eyes

00:49:14.580 is a positive vision of masculinity why wouldn't they follow it? Yeah and I wrote a piece about

00:49:19.780 how the kind of social justice activism the culture today is very feminine in nature so

00:49:26.320 things like cancel culture and women are more likely to use indirect methods of aggression like 1.00

00:49:31.640 reputation destruction social exclusion you know we're more likely to be risk averse so safetyism

00:49:38.080 is kind of parallels you know typical female behavior and i think a lot of this stuff that's 1.00

00:49:44.540 happening in culture is feminine in nature and some boys and men don't feel like they fit into

00:49:50.500 that they don't that's not how um they would have society be and you know it's not because

00:49:56.180 they're wrong um and I think yeah so someone masculine comes along it's very attractive to

00:50:02.100 them because it probably aligns more with their traits than the culture now and the other thing

00:50:07.000 that I find worrying is so he's in prison nobody knows if he's guilty or innocent and but people

00:50:12.560 think right okay that's it the problem is dealt with we've got rid of him and I'm there thinking

00:50:18.160 well no the problem isn't dealt with because then somebody else is going to come along and tap into

00:50:24.140 it yeah maybe worse yeah exactly yeah it's true i think we yeah like you said there's a vacuum

00:50:30.100 there there's some someone they're filling a demand for something um so we need to figure out

00:50:35.740 what what that demand is for and and try and figure out what it is within that kind of ultra

00:50:41.980 masculine front that someone like angie tate has what is it that they find attractive about that 0.90

00:50:47.280 Because there is value in it.

00:50:50.220 Surely there is, if so many people are interested in it.

00:50:52.880 Well, there's definitely value in it in the sense that, you know,

00:50:55.740 if you're telling people to take responsibility, men particularly,

00:50:58.860 to take responsibility, to pursue their dreams,

00:51:02.040 these are things that a lot of men of your generation

00:51:04.780 have never heard in their lives.

00:51:06.040 They've never been encouraged.

00:51:07.940 But then, you know, as I said, I think someone who says this,

00:51:11.640 you generally see your children once a year or whatever,

00:51:13.740 it's probably going in the wrong direction there.

00:51:15.780 So that's why I say healthy role models and, you know,

00:51:19.440 I think that's why Jordan Peterson actually became as big as he became

00:51:22.820 because he was like, take responsibility, here's some rules, you know.

00:51:27.260 And I think it's important for people like that to be coming through

00:51:31.840 and giving positive visions of masculinity

00:51:35.800 and for society to stop demonising masculinity as well.

00:51:39.800 Yeah, and I think that's what men respond to.

00:51:41.540 They respond to the kind of pick yourself up and sort yourself out.

00:51:44.600 girls don't really respond to that in the same way you know we that we need a different approach 1.00

00:51:49.360 and I think boys don't really have that in society it's all about like you're doing fine

00:51:56.140 you're you know relax de-stress take on less challenges whereas a lot of boys mental health

00:52:02.840 problems might come from the fact that they're not being pushed maybe they want to be pushed

00:52:06.620 they want to take on more challenges um so I think when someone comes along using that male approach

00:52:12.700 is really appealing to them do you think that on the flip side of it though we also feminine we 0.98

00:52:18.360 also demonize traditional femininity as well to some extent I mean my wife before she before she 0.96

00:52:25.680 she had our son she was always working yeah and she's now with our son and not working nearly as

00:52:32.600 much and you start to see that actually it's probably quite hard being just like a mum yeah

00:52:39.060 I mean, my mum was a housewife all her life.

00:52:44.260 She has actually a very interesting business now.

00:52:46.300 But that was never really as much of an issue.

00:52:48.980 She was not demonised for doing that.

00:52:51.000 Maybe also the culture that I come from as well.

00:52:53.280 You know, in Russian culture, it was a bit different.

00:52:55.340 But I think if you were to say to your mates,

00:52:58.120 and I'm just hypothesising, but I'm guessing,

00:53:00.420 you know what, I just want to stay at home with the kids.

00:53:02.800 You'd probably have quite a hard time with it.

00:53:04.680 Yeah, they'd find that oppressive.

00:53:07.060 Again, restrictive.

00:53:08.580 What if you chose it?

00:53:09.520 Would that still be oppressive?

00:53:11.140 Yeah, I think they would think I've chosen it

00:53:13.560 because I've been convinced, conditioned to think.

00:53:15.720 By your husband or whatever.

00:53:17.040 Yeah, right.

00:53:18.300 It's interesting because you've got the people

00:53:20.580 kind of demonizing masculinity,

00:53:22.380 but then kind of encouraging girls

00:53:24.480 to be more and more masculine,

00:53:26.100 like the becoming cold and detached in relationships

00:53:29.080 so that you can find a partner that way

00:53:32.440 through casual sex,

00:53:33.460 then you won't get hurt, things like that.

00:53:35.060 um even in yeah working we're more encouraged to be masculine independent um so you know it's

00:53:43.140 either one or the other even masculine traits are good things or they're not and it seems to be

00:53:47.320 yeah both traditional femininity and masculinity are getting demonized in different ways 0.96

00:53:52.220 all right well before we wrap up then what do we do about all this um well i don't know i think for

00:53:59.760 like i said for a lot of these issues gen z needs to get out more and have more experiences

00:54:04.700 because I think the more time on your screen it's worse for your mental health you know you've got

00:54:09.140 that constant social comparison the targeted ads and algorithms and you're not experiencing life

00:54:14.520 and I think that plays into the woke stuff as well you're just staying in the same online

00:54:20.580 communities getting served the same content and I don't think that's good for mental health I

00:54:25.580 don't think it's good for your development in general so I think yeah that's the one thing

00:54:30.120 that young people can do um yeah Freya it's been an absolute pleasure we always finish with the

00:54:38.840 final question which is always what's one thing we're not talking about as a society that we

00:54:44.100 really should be I think it's girls mental health I think we are talking about it a lot but we need

00:54:49.160 to be talking about it with more compassion you know these aren't problems that are just nothing

00:54:53.280 new I think that um you know this crisis is the product of a lifetime of conditioning I think that

00:54:59.340 girls we're the first generation of girls to be made to feel insecure anxious unwell um all the

00:55:05.600 time online to maximize profit and boost um engagement and i think you know people need

00:55:13.860 to realize how girls are being manipulated and misled and the corporations that are cashing in

00:55:18.100 on it and i think for girls it's about you know for gen z in general not punishing themselves for

00:55:23.880 feeling anxious and depressed and all of these things and rather than feeling anxious about

00:55:29.080 what's wrong with them feeling angry that they're growing up in a world like this and that yeah

00:55:33.320 corporations are capitalizing on it and also taking action i would i would suggest i mean

00:55:37.820 being angry for the sake of it isn't going to change anything yeah being angry and empowered

00:55:41.620 to make a change in their own lives for their own mental health yeah well said frere i really

00:55:47.040 recommend everybody read your articles i hope you keep writing on your sub stack which i've been

00:55:50.820 really enjoying and i look forward to your book thank you it's exciting times we're going to ask

00:55:55.100 you a couple of questions uh that only from our locals that only they will get to see but for now

00:55:58.840 thank you so much

00:55:59.560 and thank you guys

00:56:00.720 for watching and listening

00:56:01.540 we'll see you

00:56:02.240 with another brilliant episode

00:56:03.520 like this one

00:56:04.180 or our show

00:56:04.900 all of them go out

00:56:06.100 at 7pm UK time

00:56:07.520 and for those of you

00:56:08.360 who like your trigonometry

00:56:09.340 on the go

00:56:10.140 it's also available

00:56:11.200 as a podcast

00:56:12.040 so you won't need to look

00:56:13.100 at your screens

00:56:13.700 take care

00:56:14.500 and see you soon

00:56:15.280 get off the phone

00:56:16.080 and go in for a walk

00:56:17.060 or something

00:56:17.420 yeah but make sure

00:56:18.340 to listen to us

00:56:19.060 while you're walking

00:56:20.120 is the increase

00:56:22.680 in teenage girls

00:56:23.480 using mental health services

00:56:24.780 evidence that we need

00:56:25.720 more mental health services

00:56:26.880 or is that evidence

00:56:28.260 that such services are actually making things worse.

TRIGGERnometry - April 19, 2023

Why is Gen Z so Depressed and Anxious？ - Freya India

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