True Patriot Love - Is Social Media Breaking Our Kids？ ft. Steve Joordens

00:00:00.000 When the frontal lobes are fully developed, which by the way, takes about 25 years, it's the last

00:00:04.420 part of our brain, that's the part of our brain that inhibits behaviors and controls and says,

00:00:09.680 you know, no, no, it's probably not a good idea to do that. For a young 13, 14, 15 year old,

00:00:15.340 they have almost none of that. They have a very little ability to control and inhibit,

00:00:20.460 and they have a very strong tendency to get addicted by these cues. And so when you put

00:00:25.040 these devices in their hands, we see the transformation, you

00:00:28.280 know, happen very quickly.

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00:01:04.780 Today on True Patriot Love, I am lucky enough to have Steve Jordans,

00:01:10.040 Professor of Psychology from the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus.

00:01:15.920 Morning, Steve. How are you doing?

00:01:17.780 I am doing very well. It's great to be with you here today.

00:01:20.680 Yeah, thanks for taking the time.

00:01:22.400 i know you've got a busy schedule i you're running around and you know it's interesting because

00:01:28.800 i was getting ready for the show this morning and uh we had a huge storm did you guys have

00:01:33.840 a storm out scarborough way last night we had a massive uh lightning storm last night

00:01:39.200 i don't recall very foggy here though i'm right on the lake so very foggy very foggy i get up and

00:01:44.880 i get up in the morning early because i have all this lightning and thunder and i start watching

00:01:49.680 the news and as soon as i started watching the news i see the announcement that today at four

00:01:55.680 o'clock they're going to announce the safe social media act which proposes barring children under

00:02:03.040 the age of 16 from us accessing social media platforms and i was like wow is this good because

00:02:11.040 i got steve on the show today we couldn't have caught this any better timing wise i know it's

00:02:15.840 you know you got you're trying to work around some other schedule at him so thank you um but

00:02:21.600 you know this is interesting because government now is looking for large tech companies uh social

00:02:28.400 media operators and ai developers to hold them responsible for uh i guess a code of conduct

00:02:37.040 it's not a criminal offense that they're talking about but they are talking about a regulatory

00:02:41.840 process and some boards to deal with these high tech companies and to start to put some

00:02:47.480 safety guardrails in place for people under the age of 16.

00:02:53.580 You and I talked a few weeks ago and we were chatting about the fact that other countries

00:03:00.360 like Australia have already started to put those in.

00:03:06.800 I mean, I think this is us starting like we kind of just let technology go crazy and we did very little to regulate, you know, what the companies could do or what our children could do for that matter.

00:03:18.900 And we're starting to see the impacts of that for sure.

00:03:22.160 Now we're seeing anxiety and depression levels that are at the roof.

00:03:25.960 We're seeing young people having real difficulties talking in real time to one another.

00:03:31.460 and a lot of this we know does connect with technology use social media certainly a big

00:03:37.400 part of that so you know i see this as over i see a reflective moment as overdue i think we as as

00:03:44.940 humans have to sit back and say we need a more healthy relationship with our technology we've

00:03:50.000 allowed it's kind of like we've been eating junk food like it's been going out of style

00:03:53.500 and now we're all getting fat and dying and then we're saying hey we cannot sustain this way of

00:03:58.540 living. And so, yeah, I think change is needed. This is probably part of that. I think it's an

00:04:04.660 interesting first step. I hope it's a first step to get the reflection going. And what I mean by

00:04:10.460 that is just I'll give you this example. One of the most critical human needs is what we call

00:04:15.860 autonomy. We want to feel like we are in control of our own lives. We don't like it at all when

00:04:21.500 other people tell us what we can and cannot do. We saw some evidence of that during the pandemic

00:04:25.960 and we push back if someone tells us we must do something or must not and so now we're going to

00:04:32.580 tell our children you must not touch social media which is all well and good except what are the

00:04:38.720 rest of us going to be doing what are they going to be seeing of these kids that turn 16 and

00:04:42.940 suddenly jump on to social media while their parents are continually on social media well

00:04:47.160 whatever so I think this is part of the problem but we really have to look at ourselves as parents

00:04:53.220 as older people too what are we modeling how are we behaving um and i think this is sort of a first

00:04:58.500 step in in what's going to have to be a much more complex reflection and yeah reconnection with how

00:05:04.420 how we interact with technology what we use it for but how we prevent it from actually causing

00:05:09.700 the harms and it is causing very real harms now yeah well you know it's interesting because i was

00:05:15.780 talking to one of the produce show producers on the way in i was telling him this story about my

00:05:20.900 kids um and basically going through the fact that i didn't give them well i gave them phones but i

00:05:28.180 gave them flip phones until they were all 16. and there's no science to honestly intuitively

00:05:36.500 i did it because what i was seeing with my friends kids uh i just i just noticed their behavior

00:05:45.460 when they were using pads when they were using their parents phones and as as i was going to

00:05:51.060 dinner parties and lunches and swim events and things i'd watch these kids misbehaving with

00:05:56.980 this technology and i was looking at my own boys and i said man you know i just don't see this

00:06:02.820 right now and so intuitively i just said okay i'm going to make this rule i'm going to give them

00:06:07.220 flip phones um they hated it it was actually it's funny steve because uh the one the one boy i have

00:06:14.020 the the youngest one he intentionally used to break his flip phone every year trying to get

00:06:19.380 an iphone and i just buy another flip phone they're only 20 bucks or something so i just go

00:06:24.580 out and i get another one and i give it back to him say keep this in your knapsack and only use

00:06:28.420 it if you need to call me um and he hated it because all his friends were already on iphones

00:06:34.820 and this was in uh middle school you know and i look at what's happening in the u.s i lived i

00:06:40.020 think i mentioned to you i lived in the u.s for 12 years and i actually did a project in new mexico

00:06:47.700 just outside of albuquerque new mexico i built a a building and a project it was a very interesting

00:06:54.580 place but i found it interesting that one of the first lawsuits that actually went through against

00:07:00.900 meta was in new mexico and it was the the trial um for child safety they lost and it was the

00:07:09.140 375 million dollar uh settlement or or uh was awarded and now quite frankly they're chasing

00:07:18.260 meta for 3.7 billion in new mexico um and it's growing you know uh australia at the same time

00:07:26.580 they got active i think australia was the first one as we mentioned they went on and they've

00:07:31.140 blocked to date, 4.7 million under 16 accounts have been deactivated. And they continue. I think

00:07:41.400 they're up to 49.5 million in platform fines that they've levied already. So they've taken a very

00:07:52.740 aggressive approach right on the heels of that uh the uk the u.s uh 12 other countries uh 14

00:08:00.960 european countries followed and they're in uh banning uh and the u.s is just lining up right

00:08:07.900 now i took a look before the show yeah they took some stats there's 2,664 cases pending in the u.s

00:08:16.440 federal court for addiction um and there's 1200 school district lawsuits nationwide in 41 states

00:08:26.760 and the ags are active against meta and tick tock in 41 plus states yeah so the attorney generals

00:08:35.240 so they're coming right u.s very litigations they're they're lining up now right they see the

00:08:40.840 yep and that's i think that is sort of where the rubber is going to hit the road on some of

00:08:45.080 this stuff because it is absolutely true these are addictive platforms and they're addictive

00:08:49.400 platforms to some extent aimed at children and these so just maybe maybe let's just talk that

00:08:55.480 through a little bit so that everybody understands so what why is you know what's so addictive about

00:09:00.200 it why does it grab them the way it does we all know it does you know we can see kids at restaurants

00:09:04.840 as as young as three or four or five the parent wants them to be quiet they give them a device

00:09:09.880 and the kid is you know quiet and we see that and it's like wow that young age they're already

00:09:14.600 attracted to it uh and what the real power is is something we call random rewards any anything that

00:09:21.080 you engage in and and those of you who are golf fans will will know this from a golf analogy if

00:09:26.280 now and then something really good happens and you never really know when that now and then is

00:09:32.600 it can start to feel like it's always just about to happen and so you start to chase it so that

00:09:37.480 great golf shot you know maybe you had six bad ones in a row but you feel like oh yeah but if

00:09:42.280 If I hit this next one, it'll be great.

00:09:44.140 And you're going after it.

00:09:45.500 That's what they're doing when they're doing their death scrolls.

00:09:47.980 Every now and then, there's something that really grabs them.

00:09:50.600 Or every now and then, somebody responds to something they posted or shares something.

00:09:55.860 But it's this randomness.

00:09:57.600 And the brain wants to chase those random rewards.

00:10:00.900 It actually feels good to chase those random rewards.

00:10:03.700 Dopamine is released when we're doing that.

00:10:06.360 Now, what the older brain, and by the older brain, what I mean is when the frontal lobes

00:10:10.820 have fully developed which by the way takes about 25 years it's the last part of our brain that's

00:10:15.780 the part of our brain that inhibits behaviors and controls and says you know no no it's probably not

00:10:21.060 a good idea to do that for a young 13 14 15 year old they have almost none of that they have a very

00:10:27.940 little ability to control and inhibit and they have a very strong tendency to get addicted by

00:10:32.980 these cues and so when you put these devices in their hands we see the transformation you know

00:10:38.260 happen very quickly and they become addicted you know think of like what parents should be doing

00:10:43.380 is kind of using these devices as a reward saying hey if you go out and play with friends or you go

00:10:48.100 out and do these other you know good behaviors then you can have this phone for two hours at

00:10:52.740 night but any parent will know that just doesn't work well it doesn't work and we have to make it

00:10:59.140 work you have to be tough it sounds like you're tough with the flip phones a lot of parents are

00:11:03.380 not tough and so that kid starts whining and complaining everybody else has it i want to blah

00:11:08.260 blah blah and the easiest way to get them to be quiet is just to give them the phone and we've

00:11:11.940 now given them the phone 24 7. they bring it to bed i ask people i ask my students do you have

00:11:18.180 your phone within reach when you're in bed and and overwhelmingly yes horrible horrible um ruins

00:11:25.860 their sleep and that makes everything everything difficult so yeah we've created a world full of

00:11:30.420 addicts and it's time we have to start looking at this and kind of thinking it through passing

00:11:35.140 some regulations but mostly looking at ourselves in the mirror and changing our behaviors as well

00:11:40.040 yeah you know it's interesting the other thing i did which i'm again just intuitively i was

00:11:48.420 going again to friends we were having play days with people and and everyone was playing video

00:11:54.360 games you know my kids were growing up in that era where video you know we kind of jumped from

00:11:58.760 pong uh to donkey kong and then quite frankly next thing you know like it was uh grand theft auto

00:12:05.720 like it did we just kind of like zoomed into this next world and so um i came home and uh

00:12:12.880 my wife or my younger boy she had bought a new server a gaming server and i was uh building a

00:12:19.480 property um in the states i came home for the weekend and i got there and they had this gigged

00:12:25.380 up server, you know, and they all were sitting there in the chairs with these big headsets

00:12:29.160 on. So on Monday morning, actually, I'm always up early. I disconnected and took it to my

00:12:34.880 office and it was gone. Oh my goodness. And then, you know, they had bought a Wii. I got

00:12:41.100 rid of the Wii. And, you know, I probably, again, just an age thing, but I used to go

00:12:50.400 i used to reduce the technology and i used to throw lacrosse sticks and hockey sticks and

00:12:56.560 basketballs and footballs in the backyard and just let them go you know or organically figure

00:13:02.560 out what they wanted to play and what they wanted to touch yeah you know it's interesting because

00:13:07.840 you know i want to get into the research you're doing because when i talked to you last time

00:13:13.040 and you hit on it a little bit at the beginning of the show we're starting to see and companies

00:13:18.880 through north america canadian companies are starting to see the impacts of this behavior

00:13:24.800 on people just about going going through university entering the workforce and it's

00:13:30.640 impacting their businesses so it's and some of the work you're doing and we don't have to bring

00:13:35.840 up names if you don't want to if you're okay to it's great but some of the work you're a lot of

00:13:40.880 the work you're doing right now is is really i could say it's uh trying to fix what's broken a

00:13:47.520 little bit so you know you're you're coming in and tell us a little bit about how you're doing that

00:13:53.120 starting start me off with the why because when you told me this story and you know i was driving

00:13:59.280 along in my truck that night and i was doing my calls on the way home after our call i call i had

00:14:05.840 about six calls to make and you were my lead story on all six i was astonished with that conversation

00:14:12.560 like that the conversation of the work you do now take us through it because i for the listeners i

00:14:18.800 want them to like really understand the impacts of what has happened to our society and and yeah

00:14:26.640 okay sure so it's a bit of a long winding road but it's but it's a very interesting road it

00:14:30.800 literally started during the pandemic and i was one of those voices early on that said

00:14:35.840 i was trying to help people understand what anxiety is and how to manage it and

00:14:39.280 we were hearing things like um being socially distant and and i was saying no no no not socially

00:14:45.200 distant physically distant you know you don't want to be in close proximity to other human beings

00:14:49.360 but boy our social connections are so important and we know that's true the number one predictor

00:14:54.720 of health happiness mental health and physical health success is social connection do you have

00:15:01.040 three or four or five people that you feel really closely connected to that would be there for you

00:15:06.400 that you would be there. Those of us who do tend to have a lot more success and happiness in life

00:15:11.360 than those that don't. And so when I started to sort of think about social connection, I started

00:15:16.220 to measure some things in my classes. And I teach an 1800 student intro psych class. I started to

00:15:22.060 measure, well, the most scary one was social anxiety, just how socially anxious were the

00:15:26.240 students. My students are 17 or 18 years old. Over half of my class is beyond the clinical level of

00:15:33.120 social anxiety. So they feel isolated, they feel lonely. And I can say to them, there's a person

00:15:40.080 sitting right beside you who probably feels the exact same way as you. Why not just start a

00:15:46.720 conversation and make some friends? And to our generation, that doesn't sound so ridiculous. 0.86

00:15:53.760 To this generation, it does. They literally say, and it took me a long time to wrap my head around 0.80

00:15:58.860 this, they literally say that step of just reaching out and saying, hey, my name is Steve.

00:16:04.920 What are you studying or whatever?

00:16:06.660 They are full of something that's called the fear of negative evaluation.

00:16:09.960 And this comes from social media, social media that is so comparison focused.

00:16:14.700 They now come to my class thinking people are going to judge me if they get to know me,

00:16:19.720 they're going to judge me.

00:16:21.520 And especially when it comes to talking in real time, I'm not good at that.

00:16:25.740 And it's not going to go well.

00:16:26.920 And we're going to come back to that in a second.

00:16:28.460 So I started to think about that. I'm not good at that. Why do you guys think you're not good at that?

00:16:33.040 And as I kind of work things through and talk to students and did some research, I find social media is the beginning and text messaging.

00:16:40.080 So really asynchronous communication. The idea that you can communicate with somebody, but not in real time.

00:16:46.980 It feels safe for them. You know, write it, send it, wait for a message to come back.

00:16:51.700 I feel like I'm in control. But what they're not getting is nonverbals.

00:16:55.980 So when you and I talk even like this, they're not as rich as they could be, but anytime it's real time, I say something, you nod your head, you react in certain ways.

00:17:07.420 That nonverbal part of the conversation is estimated to be about 90% of the information we're sharing.

00:17:13.780 If you watch the information dance between us, about 90% is nonverbal, about 10% is the message.

00:17:20.180 Text messaging, social media, the way you communicate there, there's no nonverbals.

00:17:25.140 There's emoticons, but that's your conscious mind putting emotional states.

00:17:29.880 That's not how real emotion works.

00:17:32.320 And so these kids, you know, by 10, 12, 13, texting becomes their primary way of communicating,

00:17:38.900 social media, all these shallow ways that don't give the nonverbals.

00:17:43.820 And so now when they have to do face to face and they're seeing these nonverbals, it's

00:17:48.660 almost like they're artistic now, that they're challenged by the amount of information coming

00:17:53.220 at them.

00:17:53.600 They feel intimidated.

00:17:55.140 don't feel like they're doing well uh they feel like that person's not going to like them and is

00:17:59.140 going to say bad things about them so better just not to talk to them uh and so that was the challenge

00:18:05.300 like wow they're having trouble just talking to each other in real time how the heck can we do

00:18:11.460 something about that um so i don't know where you want to take the story there but that kind of led

00:18:16.740 me oddly to artificial intelligence yeah well you know and i i was telling steve the story about a

00:18:24.820 job fair so another company we have we actually went to a appeal job fair we've been to a couple

00:18:31.460 job fairs in the last few months the first job fair we went to we had a difficult time getting

00:18:38.660 people to approach us and have a a conversation about the positions open the company what they'd

00:18:46.420 like to do so we we we sat down as a group pardon me and we sat down as a group and we created a set

00:18:54.340 of qr codes and it was the introduction so when you approached our booth to actually come to the

00:19:02.740 job fair we we had to get them to qr to learn about the company qr to learn about the job and

00:19:11.620 qr to apply for the job to get them to and when we would try to get them to come directly to interact

00:19:19.860 with us they struggled they were awkward they were very socially so we were like man we're

00:19:27.780 we need to figure out some prompts and i felt awkward and very uncomfortable with it because

00:19:34.740 quite frankly i'm i'm the opposite i don't text i don't email i like to i'd like to call you steve

00:19:41.140 because i prefer to have a conversation with you so here i was um number one we we had a bunch of

00:19:47.860 students, graduates, people who are in the workforce, attending the job fairs.

00:19:54.020 They number, they weren't prepared. So they hadn't done any research on our company or any

00:19:59.280 of the companies there. No one wore a tie, a dress shirt, a sports coat, a pair of slacks.

00:20:05.520 They were mostly in jeans and t-shirts. So they, it was odd to me. And then all of a sudden we had

00:20:11.380 to adapt our hiring process to interact with them with qr codes yeah and i'm like so

00:20:19.540 so go ahead for a minute because i i have one more piece i want to talk to you about after you

00:20:24.180 talk about the ai piece okay because it's a learning that you taught me after uh we spoke

00:20:31.780 and then i want to share it because after we spoke i was like a whole uh light went off

00:20:38.740 that now told me how to start dealing with the different people in my different companies.

00:20:43.460 Okay. I'm curious. Fantastic. Yeah. I mean, we kind of imagine this story. So imagine this poor

00:20:50.180 hapless prof who sees these students coming. And I know, I've always been worried about preparing

00:20:55.220 them for future work, as you're talking about. And I always used to think critical thinking,

00:20:59.060 creative thinking, communication skills. These are all critical things that you need.

00:21:03.460 and i was watching a core one your ability to talk to another human being disappearing um you

00:21:09.300 know suddenly by the way i do think those of you who have children that are socially fluent that's

00:21:14.660 a rare thing and and that's almost a superpower now those children are going to do well in the

00:21:20.260 future but those who are losing that ability are going to yeah have a lot of struggles um so how

00:21:26.740 do we help them how do we push them up and so i i know that the basics is practice it's almost like

00:21:31.540 Like you said, throw the throw the cocky sticks and stuff in the backyard.

00:21:35.200 They'll start playing with something.

00:21:36.240 They'll get good at something.

00:21:37.400 They'll start to like it.

00:21:39.060 Practice is what makes us feel good about doing things.

00:21:41.820 And so my thought was, how can we give them practice having conversations?

00:21:46.700 Because we can tell them there's some very easy tips and strategies for navigating conversations

00:21:51.460 that you can tell somebody.

00:21:53.380 But knowing it and being able to do it are two different things.

00:21:56.760 You can only really do it by practicing that knowledge.

00:21:59.620 and they're scared to talk to other human beings.

00:22:02.340 And so this brought us to conversational AI.

00:22:05.720 They are not scared to talk to AI

00:22:07.640 because AI doesn't judge, AI doesn't tell their friends.

00:22:10.580 So we can get rid of that fear of negative evaluation.

00:22:13.900 And we started creating these AI agents in this platform

00:22:18.380 where we could create these agents

00:22:19.660 that could produce conversation partners,

00:22:22.180 some of which were very easy to talk to,

00:22:24.480 but some of which were more curmudgeon-y

00:22:26.320 or didn't really want to talk to you

00:22:27.900 were were busy at the time and you had to try to navigate the more difficult conversational bits

00:22:33.100 so we started creating this platform and and sort of gamifying it to try to make it fun

00:22:39.180 for students to learn these skills and then we realized how useful these ai agents were

00:22:43.900 and we started so we created a virtual version of me that students could go to 24 7. they like

00:22:49.660 coming with questions at 2 in the morning i don't like answering questions at 2 in the morning

00:22:53.820 but he does he's there he's ready to go um and he will ask them questions and so we had a a virtual

00:22:59.980 version of me we had ais in their teamwork projects that they had to talk to to learn how

00:23:05.340 to negotiate interacting with each other we're even playing with ai as an assessor so it actually

00:23:10.540 asks them about what they learned and assesses their learning through speech and so we've started

00:23:15.580 to think we've got them for four years if we get them to talk a lot if we get them to have to have

00:23:22.380 conversations to acquire what they need the help they need then maybe in those four years as you

00:23:27.660 say we can try to undo some of the damage done in that sort of 13 to 17 year period but what

00:23:34.860 we'd really rather do is get back to that 13 to 17 year period right and that almost goes back

00:23:39.180 to our band sort of notion that really what we want to do is try to cut off this trajectory

00:23:44.940 they're on that's that's leading them to this level of social anxiety um so so that's the game

00:23:50.140 and then the last point i'll say is we were doing all this stuff at u of t and through a funny sort

00:23:55.420 of path that that started by the way with the the toronto zoo the ceo of the toronto zoo found out

00:24:00.140 what we were doing we now have a virtual zookeeper at the otter exhibit of the toronto zoo and he

00:24:05.900 started telling all these organizations in toronto about what we're doing and now to your point um

00:24:12.460 we're working with consulting companies that have junior associates and their job as a consulting

00:24:18.940 company your job is to talk to clients and to help clients and the junior associates are telling the

00:24:24.300 senior associates we don't want to talk to clients we can't talk to them if we talk to them it's going

00:24:28.460 to be a mess so you guys have to talk to the clients that's not sustainable in a consulting

00:24:34.220 agency and so what we've now learned is if if we don't do our part in university this problem

00:24:39.820 carries all the way through to the workforce and then we're running into situations like you're

00:24:45.100 seeing where my goodness how do we have these employees that that can't sit around a boardroom

00:24:50.220 and talk to each other they would rather text each other while sitting right beside each other

00:24:54.540 you know we this is not a sustainable way to live and so that's the problem we're taking on

00:25:00.300 but but ultimately i do think we have to get more to root causes we need to get better

00:25:04.700 relationships with technology because this is not sustainable yeah no no and thank you because the

00:25:11.020 the story this you told me this story and honestly i started to apply it to my own business but the

00:25:16.780 thing you know getting ready for the show that i was thinking and we were coming in after we spoke

00:25:23.580 it's it's almost like i'm doing 20 years of mess so this is the challenge like you're you're we're

00:25:30.380 all up against but you know you've you're finding a solution using ai so we're in your case you're

00:25:36.940 using ai to try to undo what technology has created so exactly my sister captured exactly

00:25:44.780 that we're trying to use technology to undo the damages of technology what could go wrong

00:25:48.780 yeah yeah yeah exactly but which is you know what honestly probably the best use of ai i've ever

00:25:54.700 heard i'm not a huge ai fan but to tell you the truth i think it's it's tremendous when i heard

00:25:59.900 you say it um and so you know the interesting part and i think this this what we're gonna

00:26:05.740 find going forward is now that you've you know you've identified it i'm sure you know the

00:26:11.820 the psychology professors are learning about it all across the you know north america the world

00:26:18.300 as this becomes more of a discussion is it really a therapy process that people who have been on

00:26:27.820 texas for 20 years will start to take so they'll start to use it because i'm finding steve i gotta

00:26:34.460 tell you um and i i'm i'm you know in my 60s so quite frankly um i'm a different era but i do find

00:26:44.140 working with people younger people in their 40s and 30s i do find them struggle they struggle

00:26:50.780 quite a bit around that boardroom table yeah you know we have a meeting it's and you know

00:26:56.220 they they constantly come to me and they say can you get a project planning uh process in place

00:27:03.820 can you get we don't want to talk to each other we just want to be told what the next step on the

00:27:09.340 gantt chart is and if you specifically tell me the next step on the gantt chart i'm going to be super

00:27:15.660 happy yeah because then i don't have to interact with other people and what you're what you kind

00:27:22.460 of outline for me as a as a business owner and a project manager is it it's because of the way they

00:27:30.220 it's because of those texts and that social media it's not their fault it's just quite frankly the

00:27:36.460 more technology i put into place that they don't have to interact with the human being

00:27:41.340 the happier they are because of all the anxiety that they're getting and yeah i i had thought

00:27:49.260 steve and this is this is a very interesting thing for years i had thought given my age difference

00:27:55.660 to most of my staffing team that it was passive aggressive behavior yeah no no and i had like and

00:28:03.020 i and there were times when i had a resentment from it so what i was thinking is my goodness

00:28:09.260 these guys are so passive aggressive i'm i'm i have to lay out everything for them because

00:28:17.260 you know if i don't tell them you know how to plan the next step we don't get to the next step

00:28:24.220 yeah and then you know i'm talking to you and i realize it's really their social anxiety that's

00:28:30.540 causing them not like it's not me it's not the company it's not our processes it's the social

00:28:36.220 anxiety they're feeling on their own that's causing them not to go to the next step yeah it's

00:28:43.340 it's hard it's hard for people of our generation because we really didn't they've had such a

00:28:47.340 different trajectory but let me let me give a little bit of psychology i think that really

00:28:51.580 kind of helped me understand this and and so you know i talked earlier about having those three or

00:28:56.620 four really close connections in your life how do you get those um well if we come back to the

00:29:03.740 typical face-to-face conversation and the typical 90 of information is not is non-verbal

00:29:09.820 that's really critical because most of that non-verbal information is about emotional states

00:29:14.940 like when i talk to you i get a sense like oh you just did a you know reaction so you had a sort of

00:29:19.900 positive emotional reaction to what i said um and when we use we use that emotion to form

00:29:25.820 trust relationships so specifically if you and i are in the same room and something happens

00:29:31.900 um and it could be even like let's say an earthquake happens and and we're both suddenly

00:29:35.820 have that look in our eyes like oh what's going on how bad is this going to be and when i look in

00:29:39.660 your eyes i can tell because we can read the non-verbals of each other you are feeling exactly

00:29:45.820 like i'm feeling um and that makes you feel a little safer to me you're reacting to the world

00:29:51.500 the way i react to the world now it could also be somebody who says something inappropriate

00:29:56.620 and you react like you felt it was inappropriate and so did i and so now we again kind of go yeah

00:30:02.060 you know we're seeing the world the same way in order to to produce that trust relationship

00:30:07.500 you have to feel that emotional resonance that's how it's actually formed and literally oxytocin

00:30:12.460 the neurotransmitter is released when we have that emotional resonance when these people are text

00:30:17.980 messaging all the time they're just being robbed of emotional resonance they're never sharing the

00:30:23.180 emotion they're only sharing the words and so they have trouble forming those deep relationships and

00:30:29.180 so with you as their boss you know they are very socially anxious of you they don't know how to

00:30:34.300 read the non-verbals and they probably feel very intimidated and scared that you're not going to

00:30:40.060 like them that fear of negative evaluation and say the wrong thing and that's what's driving a

00:30:44.860 lot of their behavior and so it feels like we have to get them back or or hopefully you know

00:30:50.460 what i would like to do in the long run is is earlier in the school system prioritize human

00:30:56.220 to human interactions have a lot more teamwork going on in schools have a lot more activities

00:31:00.620 where students are working with other students make sure we have the sports programs make sure

00:31:04.540 we have the music programs you know those things that that sound less academic um you know old

00:31:10.940 school academic isn't as important as it was human relationship is really really important learning

00:31:15.900 how to work together in teams and like in the sport or drama to produce a play at the end

00:31:22.380 those sorts of activities are so important for our children and i think we have to come to

00:31:27.020 understand that now prioritize it and make sure that they're not robbed of that practice that

00:31:31.900 they get those three or four close friendships um and and that's really where we're at but it does

00:31:36.460 feel like yeah we've let this game get ahead of us uh and we're gonna have to kind of first of all

00:31:41.100 wake up realize where we are and then start doing some serious things to kind of get things back

00:31:45.980 where they need to be yeah i i definitely think there's a massive amount of catch-up i think

00:31:51.100 you're right like i think honestly steve i think this and it's interesting because you hit a note

00:31:56.700 I was a consultant. So I'm a CPA by trade. And, you know, I went through, which is interesting

00:32:05.480 because, you know, even to become a CPA now is a very interesting road. In my day, you used to

00:32:14.840 write, you used to go to the school of accountancy. And then when you graduate, you'd go to this,

00:32:19.700 you'd be hired by a firm, you'd go to the school of accountancy, you'd sit in a class with a bunch

00:32:24.760 of people, you'd write exams, and 50% of you went on to the ability to write your uniform final

00:32:31.300 exams. Those exams were four days of four hours of written, you'd write your answers. So you'd go

00:32:40.240 into a room, you'd sit there, there would be 3,000 people in each of the centers, and it would all

00:32:45.940 happen on the same four days across the nation. And then basically, you'd write for four hours for

00:32:53.860 four days you'd 50 of you would pass now it's multiple choice so it's gotten to a multiple

00:33:02.740 choice test they can't get people to do the jobs so quite frankly when they say kids they have a

00:33:08.020 hard time hiring people and consulting and it's i understand if you're in a consulting practice

00:33:14.100 whether whatever it be quite frankly you do need your young uh articling students to be your front

00:33:22.340 line with your clients so quite frankly whether you're an mba doing a project you know on a big

00:33:28.180 project with the airport or somewhere you know you do need them to interact ask for data

00:33:33.620 fit in a boardroom brainstorm ideas if i'm uncomfortable doing that the challenge becomes

00:33:40.500 i can't pass along that business to someone else because the only way as a partner of a

00:33:44.900 big consulting firm that you actually get any value from your partnership is that the people

00:33:50.660 coming up buy out your partnership yeah so they they actually you're not selling partnerships

00:33:55.780 don't sell out their business they have other partners join and you leave you retire and so

00:34:01.300 what a conundrum because now i'm i might not get to the it might get to the point where

00:34:06.340 i just eventually the the partnership fades away because i can't get people to interact with people

00:34:14.500 yeah i mean that's the and that's the funny thing you know with ai too because i think it's kind of

00:34:19.380 raising that we're seeing now a lot of cases where for example they will create ai's that

00:34:25.060 give medical advice so you just had some diagnosed with some terrible disease and there's an ai you

00:34:30.820 can talk to about that disease and or you could talk to a doctor and a lot of the research suggests 1.00

00:34:35.220 that most people prefer now talking to the ai's because the ai's feel more empathetic you know 0.96

00:34:41.460 they can't feel empathy right an ai is not feeling empathy it's a machine but it can project empathy

00:34:47.220 and it can make you feel like it cares about you uh and that's what people feel so i sometimes feel

00:34:53.300 and i like to think of this other example every now and then we all have this older person in

00:34:57.220 our life that's told us the same story 10 times and when when they do when they start telling

00:35:02.500 that story we're like oh grandma you know i know that story we roll our eyes we go ah

00:35:07.700 if it was an ai assistant there every time they told the story it could react like it was the

00:35:13.140 first time and it would be interested and it might ask follow-up questions and it might whatever and

00:35:17.620 it would be this great interaction that that older person would love um even though they're having

00:35:22.500 that same interaction you know every second day for the rest of their life it would drive us great

00:35:27.860 so the some of these ai interactions i think are going to show us humans like oh my goodness if we

00:35:33.460 don't get our game up if we're going to allow our human to human abilities to decrease while this

00:35:38.900 thing kind of comes into our world you know that's really it's kind of like we have to fight back

00:35:44.420 but fighting back means becoming better humans with one another and and learning how to kind

00:35:49.460 of instill that in our children um and maybe that'll be a good thing you know maybe every now

00:35:53.860 and then we need a common enemy to kind of rally us and and and technology is a great common enemy

00:35:58.900 sometimes um we know it brings all kinds of positives but it just always brings a lot of

00:36:04.020 negatives as well and if we allow them both just to come together yeah i'm worried about the

00:36:09.460 negatives so but but i feel like we're getting to a point i feel like that bill that you talked

00:36:14.020 about and other things you know people are starting to say okay enough's enough we can't

00:36:19.060 just let this go without some sort of regulation or control yeah no for sure and it's a shame a

00:36:25.620 little bit because i think we had bill c63 which was a federal bill we were which talked about the

00:36:34.260 exploitation of children and predatory practices and everything i think we loaded the bill up with

00:36:39.940 too much so the bill failed quite frankly a year it could have been passed a year earlier if we

00:36:45.220 would just um like the safe social media act that they're talking about now yeah i think they're

00:36:50.660 finally getting it right i think we spent a year trying to load up a bill to do kind of we we

00:36:57.140 commingled freedom of speech and predatory practices of social media together which was a

00:37:02.740 shame because we we slowed down the process and we could have gained a year we could have been we

00:37:08.100 could have actually hopped over australia and being the world leader in social media practices

00:37:13.380 which i would have would have thought would have sent a good message to the world um but you know

00:37:18.260 we're there the good thing is we're there now and i think today at four o'clock we're gonna

00:37:23.220 we're gonna see that outcome you know help me a little you know dopamine we started you know and

00:37:29.940 i just want to hit on it because i we'll talk about it for a minute i'd like to get you back

00:37:34.020 for another show on it but you know when we first chatted we really wanted to talk about

00:37:40.420 uh ai and dopamine so that was the the first kind of our first discussion we had and quite frankly

00:37:47.460 we got into this and i said this is way more interesting steve i gotta get this out there

00:37:52.100 because i don't think anyone's talking about this the way we're talking about it yeah dopamine so

00:37:58.660 you know and i've my whole career i've been interested in uh how dopamine dopamine affects

00:38:04.980 people's behavior and habits and you know i've watched and i'm a true believer of um you know

00:38:12.020 whether it be addiction or anything else that dopamine plays a really key role um in how you

00:38:19.140 know you you act and how sometimes uh people hop over different addictions based on just trying to

00:38:28.020 find another dopamine and so talk and then let's if we can make our way to ai because i think what

00:38:35.220 we have to worry about sometimes is um or we do have to worry about is that when we replace all

00:38:41.380 these things are people going to start getting those dopamine uh spikes from the ai where we're

00:38:50.420 like it's almost like a weaning um and i tell the story about i used to i used to love to have a few

00:38:57.060 drinks so and i've told this story on other shows and i i don't know you know i was functional i

00:39:03.700 worked but i enjoyed beer and i enjoyed having i really did and as i got older you know i realized

00:39:09.380 I had to recalibrate my consumption because my tolerance was getting high so I was having trouble

00:39:17.540 doing it because I enjoyed it so much it was my social outlet I enjoyed meeting up with friends

00:39:22.660 and having drinks and you know but and you know as you get older you got to kind of tolerate reduce

00:39:28.900 your amount which I did end up getting but I found a way to do it by weaning off of alcohol

00:39:35.860 replacing it with other sugars and it was a joe namath i listened to joe namath talk about his

00:39:44.400 addiction to alcohol and how he got off by supplanting or replacing the alcohol with ice

00:39:52.140 cream and i think it was dr pepper so he replaced the sugars but he he did it by spiking because he

00:40:00.680 drinking so much he used a massive amount of sugar to kind of take away that alcohol sugar to reduce

00:40:07.480 the the uh side effects tough way to do it i did that myself so that's kind of the way i reduced

00:40:15.240 my consumption to the fact eventually i went to zero but you know is there a way at some point

00:40:22.520 when we you know get these dopamine spikes in people we it gets to ai they're getting their

00:40:29.800 dopamine from ai and then we have to wean them off is that a like is that a that is that a show

00:40:36.200 we're going to be doing and there's a lot there's a lot in that um to connect to um i think first

00:40:43.000 let's uh i think the story around dopamine has changed a little and and has become more

00:40:49.000 sensical so we it used to be a very simple um dopamine was the pleasure neurotransmitter they

00:40:53.960 said so when dopamine is released you feel good and that's true um absolutely but we used to

00:40:59.560 think it was released when something good happened so so let's take a benign example for first start

00:41:06.040 let's say you're a shopaholic what's a shopaholic so one of these people goes into malls and is

00:41:11.720 looking for that great deal and so the way the story used to seem to go is they were looking

00:41:16.760 around and when they found that great deal they would be aha and they would get that dopamine

00:41:22.040 spike and that would make them feel good we now understand that's not true when the dopamine

00:41:27.880 starts to flow is when you feel like you're about to find that great deal and that's why the stores

00:41:32.920 have you know sales up to 80 off or what you walk in and you feel like oh i may get a great deal

00:41:38.920 here and when you're looking that's when the dopamine is being released and that's when you're

00:41:43.720 actually having fun in fact sometimes once you find that thing and you pay for it there's a letdown

00:41:50.680 there's kind of like yeah and then you may bring it home and then you know the two weeks or three

00:41:54.200 weeks you were looking forward to getting that thing were more fun than the two weeks after when

00:41:58.520 you when you've actually had it so it wasn't about the thing it was about the chase uh and so this is

00:42:03.400 why like for example one of the things one of the things i'm after is the advertising of sport

00:42:07.720 gambling i want to see that gone and there's a bill 211 by the way that's trying to regulate

00:42:12.520 sport gambling ads as well because when a when a young person starts to gamble for example

00:42:19.320 they put that first bet down now they immediately start that dopamine cycle oh I could win I could

00:42:24.960 win a bunch of money I've got these great odds this is what's going to happen and they can very

00:42:29.280 quickly get addicted to chasing dopamine and so that happens in all sorts of situations I tell

00:42:35.080 my class I am a Kijiji addict I absolutely am Kijiji is this platform that allows you to trade

00:42:40.440 things and I'm a guitar player and I like these little guitar pedals and I've tried so many and

00:42:45.480 and so i will look oh there's one i want i'll watch the reviews i'll be all excited

00:42:49.960 all kinds of dopamine i'll do the trade okay on to the next one that's kind of how dopamine works

00:42:58.120 so when it comes to things like social connection and ai like you mentioned something you know i

00:43:03.240 like to have a few drinks and go out and socialize that's how our generation did it right and and

00:43:08.280 there's a there's a dis health to that the alcohol the alcohol is not a healthy substance to be

00:43:13.080 ingesting but it helped our social anxiety because we had a bit of social anxiety as well

00:43:17.640 everybody does right when they're interacting with strangers and we want to make good impressions

00:43:21.960 alcohol was our tool for kind of dealing with the social anxiety and then breaking through it and

00:43:28.060 then making some friends and the social connection is the real hit can people use ai they are using

00:43:34.720 ai you know some people are using ai they're creating digital friends in fact mark zuckerberg

00:43:40.440 of facebook said there will be no loneliness in the future because everybody will have their own

00:43:45.720 digital friends that they can create now of course you can create these ais that love you

00:43:53.160 that care about you and that's all they care about and so we can create these artificial

00:43:57.960 shallow friendships and but i guarantee you i i like to tie this back to a phrase

00:44:03.480 i'm actually i give talks now to the to the funeral workers and cemetery workers which is

00:44:07.400 funny and i always use this joke because because they they love it but i say you know what is a

00:44:11.640 friend a friend is not a social media friend a friend will at least help you move and a really

00:44:17.240 good friend will help you move bodies um so that's what you know people like but you know that gives

00:44:22.680 you the sense so you can create these ai friends but when you need somebody they don't exist you

00:44:28.920 know they're not real friends whereas if you've taken the time to forge real good trust-based

00:44:33.960 relationships with other humans when you need them they're there so i do worry that people will use

00:44:39.960 these as surrogate relationships to try to make it feel like they're kind of connected but they

00:44:45.640 still the anxiety the depression all of those things are not held at bay because that comes

00:44:50.600 from real social connection uh and so yeah the problem becomes how do we sort of transition them

00:44:57.400 from the bad form of dopamine that that's sort of you know giving them making them feel okay

00:45:01.800 in the moment to the more sustaining way of living which is not so much about dopamine it's

00:45:07.640 more about social connection it's more about feeling safe feeling like you're part of a

00:45:11.880 community that's those are the kinds of things that give us long-term emotional health physical

00:45:16.920 health um but it's not intuitive to people um and so so we they trade you know you talked about

00:45:24.520 the people that want to like i don't want to work with the group and figure out what to do you just

00:45:27.960 tell me what to do i will trade that that sort of complexity of working with others but all the

00:45:33.720 benefits that come with that for the simplicity of you telling me what to do and i do it um it

00:45:38.920 feels safer but it's a bad bad trade in the long run yeah no i agree steve you know and and i won't

00:45:46.040 go into it today but on a show and i'd love to get you back on another show as i was preparing for

00:45:52.120 this one i started uh to think through and you know we were doing on um falling birth rates

00:45:59.960 and later relationships and marriages and family families forming and i think at some point i'd

00:46:08.280 like to set up a show with you and do that because i was kind of going through this and i'm thinking

00:46:13.320 okay none of the guys none of the gals and guys that work for us on the other side uh except for

00:46:19.400 two are married and only one of them have kids right now so i was thinking you know i'd like to

00:46:25.320 get you back and say is part of this again that whole anxiety that's led to the path that we're

00:46:31.800 on now where you know they they haven't formed that relationship haven't started that family

00:46:36.680 haven't had that child you know is is and again is it is it a i hate to say reprogramming but is

00:46:44.840 in an exercise in trying to get them back and can we you know and should people be moving towards

00:46:51.560 that to try to regain it so they can start to think of it differently because it's easy to say

00:46:56.840 i don't want to do any of those things and i notice you know when i talk to people who are

00:47:01.080 younger now i don't want to have a family i don't have kids i don't and i think to myself

00:47:05.640 aren't you curious like aren't you aren't you like because you know i know when i was their age i

00:47:11.160 was curious and i think not that i say it's for everyone but quite frankly if i wouldn't have done

00:47:17.240 it i think i would have been curious why i didn't do it and so those are some of the i'd love to

00:47:22.120 get you back and really i mean when you consider that trajectory it starts by meeting that person

00:47:27.960 that you form that deep trusting relationship with right like even a lot of people that have

00:47:32.600 families they might not have originally wanted to have families or even done it in a very explicit

00:47:37.480 way but they met that person that they formed a connection with and said you know i think i could

00:47:42.200 live with you for the rest of my life if you never get to that step if every relationship you have is

00:47:48.120 very shallow and you never find that person then the whole right you know even the wondering even

00:47:53.800 the curiosity you're talking about you know maybe i would like that okay but you need them you need

00:47:59.080 that other and and that's a lot of uh we're seeing a lot of trouble with gen z's just coupling just

00:48:05.160 finding one another um and that's because i think they have the this difficulty forming trust-based

00:48:11.320 relationships and so yeah i mean i think that shows the potential implications down the road

00:48:17.640 you know literally a reducing population if if humans cannot interact with humans i think that's

00:48:22.360 one number we can look at but it's permeating everything as we lose our ability to connect

00:48:27.560 with one another that's the only reason we're beating all the other animals right they have

00:48:31.640 have better fangs they have better claws they're stronger they're more powerful one-on-one most of

00:48:35.920 them could take us out but as a collective we were always very good at working as social groups

00:48:41.620 and it feels like that part of us is is getting dissolved and there will be implications and we

00:48:48.400 do have to do something about it yeah thank you steve i really appreciate it and i know i know

00:48:53.400 you know you've got a lot going on so i really appreciate you taking the time i the message is

00:48:58.500 amazing and uh you know i'd like to have you back to sort of dig into it and as you're doing more

00:49:04.420 research research on it please you know uh follow up with us uh for our listeners stay tuned we're

00:49:10.900 gonna have steve back on i hope and uh thank you for watching steve thank you for taking the time

00:49:16.500 I appreciate it very much.

00:49:17.540 Thank you.

True Patriot Love - June 19, 2026

Is Social Media Breaking Our Kids？ ft. Steve Joordens

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