0:00

I'm

0:02

on the Internet to help people learn

0:04

and get curious and do well in school

0:07

and under and more of the knowable

0:09

things of their universe and know more

0:11

about the unknowable things and

0:14

that that's beautiful and it's fun and like I

0:16

get some joy from that.

0:18

You might recognize that voice. Maybe

0:21

you've heard one of his lectures on YouTube

0:23

or seen one of his educational TikTok

0:26

videos.

0:27

So we evolved to have blood production inside

0:29

of our bones, the darkest place

0:31

Evolution could find.

0:34

Hank Green, he's an author.

0:36

A science communicator and a vlogger.

0:39

He got a start on YouTube back

0:41

in two thousand seven. Think

0:44

about that. That was before the term content

0:46

creator was even a thing.

0:49

So he has seen the digital evolution

0:51

play out in real time. You

0:54

know, I I remember sort of it kind of happened

0:56

for me back in like twenty twelve, twenty thirteen when

0:58

the stuff that I started to see getting made on YouTube was

1:00

a lot of sort of cruel pranks

1:03

or, like, manipulative guys

1:06

trying to get. He

1:07

was one of the first people to

1:09

get famous from YouTube.

1:11

He was making vlogs with his brother,

1:13

who's a writer, John Green, and he

1:15

was also doing something that I can really relate

1:18

to. Trying to educate people.

1:20

Along the way, Hank got

1:22

quite a following. A million and half

1:25

followers on Twitter seven million

1:27

on TikTok and tens of

1:29

millions on YouTube channels with

1:32

his

1:32

brother, some of which are shown in schools

1:34

throughout the country. A part of

1:36

the reason I wanted to speak to Hank today

1:38

is because he's also a dad

1:40

and we share some of the same concerns.

1:44

Is my son worse off because

1:46

his dad is an Internet guy and he's gonna

1:48

be on the Internet the whole time all the

1:50

time, like, and there's no way I can be like, you can't

1:52

use social media. He's gonna be like, what do you do?

1:56

So far in the season, I've been asking professors

1:58

and doctors and experts some

2:01

pretty tough questions about screen time and

2:03

social

2:03

media. But now, I wanted

2:05

to hear from someone who makes the content

2:08

that we see when we are scrolling.

2:10

It's hard to feel good about the Internet

2:12

as a

2:13

whole, where back in two thousand seven, it was

2:15

very easy to feel good about the Internet as a whole.

2:18

So how does someone? Whose

2:20

whole job is to be online,

2:23

walk that line. I think now

2:25

we're all kind of comfortable with the idea that the Internet

2:27

is good and bad. And that it's a tool

2:30

and you can build a house with a

2:31

hammer, you can, you know, hit somebody in

2:33

the head with it. Today, my

2:35

conversation with Hank Green

2:38

a content creator and a fellow

2:40

dad about what life is like

2:43

on the other side of the screen.

2:46

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's

2:48

Chief Medical Correspondent,

2:50

and this is chasing life.

2:57

I gotta tell you, you know, this season

2:59

has been pretty heavy so far. It's

3:02

been very personal. I've had

3:04

conversations with my three teenage

3:06

daughters that have been so illuminating

3:08

and so wonderful and at

3:11

times frightening. To be honest,

3:13

they live another life, their

3:15

digital life, which I simply

3:17

don't know as much about. And

3:19

I think we often fear what we don't

3:22

understand, imagining and anticipating

3:24

all the potential dangers of social

3:26

media and screen time. But, you

3:28

know, I realized something else as well.

3:31

Something that frankly surprised me a bit

3:33

and that is despite the worry

3:35

and the concern I do

3:37

realize that our phones and the internet, it

3:40

can be a sincere source of joy and

3:42

connection and learning for so many

3:44

people. That's part of the reason

3:46

I was so excited to talk to Hank.

3:49

He's someone that kids like my daughters

3:51

look up to. I gotta say I've really

3:53

been looking forward to this one. Hank,

3:55

I I really appreciate your time. Thank

3:58

you so much. I don't

4:00

know why or whether you know who

4:02

I am, but that's cool. I

4:04

do. And and I think that the

4:07

the idea of teaching people

4:09

science in particular, just as a scientist

4:12

myself, I think is super important.

4:14

And I also have three teenagers and

4:16

your videos have actually been shown in their classrooms.

4:18

So when I told them that I was interviewing you,

4:21

they they they also knew

4:23

you. So you cross

4:24

generational, which is pretty cool. That's always

4:26

my that's usually my path and people

4:28

are, like, my children said I should talk

4:30

to you.

4:32

Right? That's good. That's good.

4:33

Yeah. Yeah. Do you have you have children? I

4:35

have one six year old. Boy, six

4:37

year old. So pretty young still. But

4:39

do you have a thought on when you would

4:41

let your child have a

4:44

device and when they might

4:46

be on social media. Howard Bauchner:

4:49

Yeah, I think that those things are really

4:51

important to distinguish that, you

4:53

know, screen screen can

4:55

be anything. But social

4:57

media specifically is

5:00

a tool that we don't

5:02

understand yet. And it changes

5:05

very fast. And we

5:08

we don't we don't know the impact that it has had

5:10

on society yet. So far, like, the

5:13

research is still, like, still very difficult

5:15

to do and it's slow. So

5:17

I I'm

5:20

gonna I think I'm gonna struggle with it because,

5:22

like, already my son, my six year old son will

5:24

look at me and say, dad, stop looking at your phone.

5:26

And I'm like, oh my god. Like, Yeah,

5:29

you're right. You know, and he loves

5:31

a YouTube video, like he'll launch I'm

5:34

very I love YouTube. And

5:36

so I my son watches YouTube, but I watch

5:38

what he watches on YouTube because I also

5:40

know how the YouTube algorithm works and it

5:42

sort of starts to creep away from the

5:45

more educational stuff that I'd like him to be watching.

5:47

Yeah. And I have to say, these are

5:49

tough conversations think as parents. I

5:51

I I've gone through this. Hank and so I have

5:53

seventeen, fifteen, and thirteen. And -- Mhmm.

5:56

-- my seventeen year old the other day said to

5:58

me, I probably wouldn't let

6:00

my kids be on social media as early

6:02

as I

6:03

which was god. It's little bit of a, like, punching

6:06

the gutty here because I thought I was, you know I'm

6:08

gonna be better parent than you, dad.

6:10

Exactly a bit much. But

6:14

I guess the flip side of that is that

6:17

she's very aware of

6:19

of -- Mhmm.

6:20

-- what it's done for her, done

6:23

to her, you know? I mean, and she would she'd

6:25

dial some of that back, which I think in some

6:27

ways may be a little bit optimistic. Like, I I feel

6:29

like a lot of times the the inclination and

6:32

we see this in medicine all the time is to assume

6:34

the worst case scenario. We have to assume

6:36

the worst. Hope for the best

6:38

but assume the worst. And everything that we do

6:40

in terms of our our how we respond

6:43

is is that that worst

6:45

case scenario. But

6:47

that is not the case for most people.

6:50

So how to find the balance

6:51

there? And I I don't know the answer. And I don't

6:53

know that you know the answer, but I'm just curious how you think

6:55

about it. Yeah. I I mean,

6:57

I this

6:59

might be a little bit can

7:02

I can I really believe this about myself? But I

7:04

feel like there, like, you can develop

7:06

expertise in how to use

7:09

a tool well. And so the

7:11

the question that that comes in up

7:14

in my mind is like, is my son

7:16

worse off because his dad is a Internet

7:18

guy and he's gonna be on the Internet the whole

7:20

time all the time, like, and there's no

7:22

way I can be like, you can't do social media. He's gonna be like,

7:24

what do you do all day every day?

7:28

So what I would like is

7:30

and what I would hope is that as sort

7:32

of more people who were who had

7:34

social media as part of their lives, when

7:36

they were younger, have children, that

7:39

we're at least able to have these conversations better

7:42

or or talk about, like, know,

7:44

any any new thing that

7:46

enters into a society is very easy

7:48

to abuse until you sort of develop

7:50

norms and taboos about how to use it. More

7:53

well. But

7:55

I think also just like any other

7:57

sort of thing that can feel

7:59

really good without a lot of it's

8:01

a little like candy. You know, I -- Mhmm.

8:04

-- where where, you know, it it it tastes feel good,

8:07

but it doesn't provide a lot of substance. And

8:09

and so I my hope is

8:12

that we can get to a place where where we know

8:14

how to use it. You know, it's

8:16

okay to have some but you're

8:18

gonna have to have some real food too.

8:22

You know this idea of the metaphor of

8:25

junk food versus real food? I

8:27

think that really resonates with me. I think that's

8:29

an interesting way of framing this.

8:32

Because, yes, there is content

8:34

like Hank's which is educational and

8:36

scientific and well thought out.

8:39

But there's also a lot of junk,

8:41

and therein lies the problem. You know,

8:43

recently, was having a conversation about this

8:45

with my youngest daughter, Solay, and

8:47

she had shown me this meme on Instagram.

8:50

And it was funny. We laughed.

8:53

But it also wasn't true.

8:55

And I asked her, I said, so

8:57

let you know this isn't true, right?

8:59

And she kinda laughed and showed me her

9:01

phone again, yeah, it's on Instagram. And

9:04

I said, right, right, but you know it's

9:06

not true. And what

9:08

she said next is something that really

9:10

kinda stopped me in my tracks. What

9:13

she said is dead, to be honest, I

9:15

really don't think that anything that I see

9:18

anymore online is true.

9:21

Think about that. So much of

9:23

what comes across her feed is garbage.

9:26

So in essence as a result,

9:29

it all becomes garbage. It

9:31

all becomes suspicious. It

9:33

is all lumped together and suddenly

9:35

you find yourself in a really kind

9:37

of scary place where nothing Nothing

9:40

at all can be trusted. Social

9:44

media in a lot of the Internet is just

9:46

a playground for them, not to

9:48

be taken seriously. And that

9:50

drags everyone down. It drags

9:52

everything down. Even for

9:54

someone like Hank, who by all

9:56

accounts makes good, credible,

9:59

fact checked vetted content. We're

10:03

talking about, like, sense making at this point.

10:05

Like like, there's always been structures

10:10

of credibility. You know, if

10:12

you go to the beginning of newspapers, everyone

10:14

knew that every newspaper had a

10:16

a perspective. Like there was a communist newspaper

10:18

and there was a Republican newspaper and there was sort

10:21

of a business newspaper. Like, and we have

10:23

that to some extent now and and we

10:25

have to sort of learn the shape of

10:27

the information landscape. And

10:31

that when I was grown up, in

10:33

the eighties and nineties, that was very

10:35

that was more much more clear. And

10:37

now it is very not clear. And

10:40

so one thing that I try to do

10:42

very hard is to get stuff right

10:44

when the content that I'm making. And when I get

10:46

stuff wrong, talk about the fact

10:49

that I got it wrong and why. And

10:53

and and that's almost for

10:55

a lot of people, like, more instructive to be

10:57

like, oh, so, like, not only

10:59

is, like, is everyone fallible,

11:02

but also you can sort of walk down the path

11:04

of how you what you what

11:06

what assumption you made that led to your wrong

11:09

content in some way. But

11:11

I worry about it being so person focused

11:14

because a person almost

11:16

is, like, has to be less credible than

11:18

a really good organization

11:21

because a person can only do so much

11:24

and a person you can't scale

11:26

them the same way and you can't you

11:28

can't build in fact checking the same way

11:30

as you as you can with, like, a strong,

11:33

robust news organization. And so if

11:35

we end up in situation where we only believe

11:37

individuals, I think that's

11:39

a worse world. This is obviously

11:41

something that you're you're quite good at, and I'm not I'm

11:43

not saying this is to flatter you, but a lot of

11:45

people do pay attention to you and your work

11:47

is also shown in schools, you

11:49

know, and people vet these things out, and they

11:52

wanna obviously educate their kids in a good way.

11:54

But how do you you will admit

11:56

when you've got something wrong. That's one thing

11:58

you said. How much time do you spend

12:01

thinking about the institution of trust with

12:03

your own content? You want to get it

12:05

accurate, but just the idea of trust, everything

12:07

from word choice to, I

12:10

don't know, your background to your your

12:12

presentation. Like, how how much

12:14

do you think about that in this digital

12:16

world? I mean, I think about I

12:18

think about it all the time. It's one of the things I

12:20

worry about it and and

12:23

on a lot for a lot of different good

12:25

reasons. You know, I worry about

12:27

it for my own. I

12:29

think a lot people would be

12:31

pretty devastated if, like, I didn't

12:34

live up to the -- Yeah.

12:36

-- the the sort of, you know, what

12:38

what I what I've been trying to portray

12:40

publicly as, you know, the parts of

12:42

me that are me. The other thing I like

12:44

to say about making content on the Internet is

12:46

that, like, I all of me that you see

12:48

is me. You just don't see all of me. And

12:51

I worry a lot about, you know,

12:53

I've seen people both

12:56

in just mistakes and in, like,

12:58

really intentional ways, do things that

13:01

have really destroyed a lot of their credibility

13:03

And they're not just destroying their own

13:05

thing. They're destroying something else that

13:08

is bigger and it's inside of other people

13:10

and that's the thing that I wanna be most careful

13:12

with.

13:15

Hank interacts online a lot more

13:17

than I do, and that can

13:19

take a toll even for a professional

13:21

like him. When we come back,

13:24

avoiding that urge to

13:26

get into it for your own good.

13:29

I've gotten better over the years at realizing

13:32

that you can't really argue with a professional arguing

13:34

without becoming a professional arguing and that's

13:36

than what I do for a living.

13:44

This message is from Abbott.

13:46

The next potentially dangerous virus

13:48

could be out there right now. We may

13:50

not know what it is or where it will strike,

13:53

but an international group of experts

13:55

is on

13:55

it. The Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition

13:57

is a global team of scientists hunting

14:00

down the next viral

14:01

threat.

14:01

Doctor Gavin Chlarity is one of them.

14:04

A virus hunter looks for

14:06

emerging viruses that

14:08

may pose a threat, there are millions

14:10

of pathogens capable of jumping into people

14:12

at any

14:13

time. A viral outbreak can become global

14:15

pandemic in days. And once the virus

14:17

hunters uncover a new pathogen, they

14:19

move to the next phase. And the clock

14:21

is

14:22

ticking. We can react very quickly. The

14:24

sooner we find a new virus, the quicker that

14:26

we can start building diagnostic tests,

14:28

making the public health community aware

14:30

but something is out there that could pose a

14:32

threat and potentially prevent an expander.

14:35

Watch the virus hunt, a series by Abbott,

14:37

and learn more about the Abbott Pandemic Defense

14:40

Coalition at abbot Discovery

14:42

dot com.

14:46

Let's face it. There's no shortage when it

14:48

comes to opinions, but when it comes to curating

14:50

the most important stories of the

14:52

day, CNN five Things is one of a kind.

14:54

I'm cohost, Krista Beau. And if you wanna

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the podcast, CNN five. Thanks.

15:17

And now back to chasing life. And

15:19

my conversation with Hank Green. You

15:25

know, Hank started posting videos at

15:27

a time before YouTube stars were

15:29

much of a thing. Keep in mind, this

15:31

was two thousand seven. And

15:33

because of this, got a pretty unique

15:35

perspective as someone who kind of struck

15:38

gold and gained internet fame,

15:40

a following that so many young people nowadays

15:43

really aspire to. After

15:45

spending so much of his career online,

15:47

Hank decided to write about

15:49

these experiences, sort of,

15:52

Hank published two books that touch

15:54

on Internet fame and the digital

15:56

world. They are called an

15:58

absolutely remarkable thing and

16:01

a beautifully foolish endeavor. I

16:04

love the titles of both of them. And

16:06

again, while these books are fiction, Hanks

16:08

says he was definitively drawing inspiration

16:11

from his real

16:11

life. I mean, I was working through

16:13

it. It's such a it's a weird

16:15

job and not a lot of people have had it

16:17

and was twenty seven when I uploaded my

16:19

first YouTube video. So I was married and

16:21

adult. you know, have

16:24

had a pretty stable set

16:26

of situations That is not

16:28

the true for most people. Like, most of

16:30

the people who were, like, my colleagues

16:33

in that era were were, like, eighteen,

16:35

nineteen, twenty, maybe even younger

16:37

than that. And it was a lot

16:39

easier for them to make worse decisions. And

16:43

because, you know, for

16:45

all the reasons. And and

16:48

and I kind of wanted to walk through, like,

16:50

just sort of let let a

16:52

character make some mistakes for me that

16:55

so that I wouldn't make and also

16:57

explore so sort of a lot of how I how

16:59

I see the Internet

17:00

now, how I think it's gonna be in the future,

17:03

and how good it is at turning absolutely

17:05

anything into a fight. How

17:07

much time do you spend online?

17:10

Obviously, you're spending time online to

17:12

to make your content, but just as a user,

17:15

of of these various platforms. How

17:17

would you characterize your use?

17:20

The parts where it it would be tricky to

17:22

call it work I could probably make

17:24

the case of just to justify it to myself.

17:27

It's probably on the order of

17:29

two to three hours per day. The weird

17:31

thing is that, like, what is online? Everything

17:33

is online to some extent. And so,

17:36

like, Netflix is online. not

17:38

counting that. But

17:40

in terms of, like, using Twitter and TikTok

17:42

and YouTube, consuming content,

17:45

doing social media, social stuff,

17:48

It's hours per day. Probably two or three

17:50

hours per day.

17:51

Have you ever thought that it's too

17:53

much? Have you ever wanted to cut back?

17:56

And if so, how did how did you do it?

17:58

I feel like it's a thing that you have to get good

18:00

at. The times when it's been destructive

18:02

for me are when I have been using

18:05

it, like it's I'm almost looking

18:07

for reasons to be upset. And

18:09

I'm I'm like, I've I've stumbled across

18:11

a piece of the Internet or or like a

18:13

sort of set of content creators who are

18:16

saying things. Specifically, what bugs me

18:18

probably the most of all things is

18:20

when they're taking some, like, nugget of

18:22

scientific truth and then usually

18:25

biological and then applying that to

18:27

a social system or to politics in

18:30

a way that is really appealing, but

18:32

really it's sort of backtracking to the prospect that

18:34

they wanted to have. So it's, like, grabbing

18:36

some science y thing and

18:38

telling, like, doing unscientific things

18:40

with it where I'm, like, I wanna just no.

18:42

I'm so mad. You can't just say things.

18:45

You know? And

18:47

But of course, you can't just say things. And,

18:50

like, I can get tied up in

18:52

in being sort of angry that the world

18:54

is not the way that I wish it were. And

18:57

and my wife kind of can quickly identify when

19:00

I'm in that space. She's like, there's something that you're mad

19:02

about that like has nothing to do with what

19:04

you do. You also have to recognize

19:06

that, like, the present like, you can't

19:08

fix everything. And

19:09

so, like, you have to focus on what you do and

19:11

what you're good at and what you actually like instead

19:14

of you

19:15

know, it's it's harder to be a good dad and

19:17

a good partner and a good leader

19:19

at my businesses if I'm sort

19:22

of caught up in some thing

19:25

that, you know, I think that the

19:27

Internet is somewhat designed to to catch us

19:29

in conflicts because that

19:31

is really good at keeping us on the platforms,

19:33

which is ultimately what the platforms

19:35

are designed to do and what their algorithms are designed

19:38

to do.

19:39

Your your your your wife sounds very wise,

19:42

obviously. I

19:44

I am curious like these these videos

19:47

or content that you're consuming that do

19:49

rile you up in the way that you described. How

19:52

does it get to

19:53

you? Is it is it part of your feed?

19:55

Is it being fed to you by one of these algorithms

19:57

you're describing? Part of my like

19:59

the fun part of my job is that if people will

20:01

ask me questions, And so

20:04

one that I saw just this week, it came

20:06

to me because several people

20:08

on TikTok had seen this video,

20:10

which got millions of views and

20:12

it was talking about some things in a scientific

20:15

frame. And a bunch of people

20:17

had tagged me and they said, Hank Green, is this true?

20:20

And I mean, it was not. Like, you're just

20:22

trying to take something that sounds

20:24

science either lend credibility to your argument.

20:27

But I, you know, I, like, I get in

20:29

I get into that and I get it kinda gets

20:31

my blood pressure

20:32

going. But I've gotten better

20:34

over the years at realizing that

20:38

One of the things I

20:40

realized is that you can't really argue with a professional

20:42

arguing without becoming a professional arguing,

20:44

and that's the one I do for a living. I don't argue

20:46

with people for a living. I'm not on the internet

20:48

to yell at people. I'm on the internet to help people

20:51

learn and get curious and do well in

20:53

school and and

20:55

understand more of the knowable

20:58

things of their universe and know more

21:00

about the unknowable things and that

21:03

that's beautiful and it's fun and, like, I get

21:05

some joy from that. And I also think that

21:07

it does more good than getting enough fight,

21:09

you

21:09

know. It's easy to fire

21:11

people up, you know, to appeal to their their amygdala,

21:14

you know, their emotional centers of the brain, and

21:16

that we'll get lot of provocation

21:18

and probably a lot of views. Do

21:21

you do you resist the urge

21:23

to to go that way, to to just

21:25

provoke because that

21:28

would probably, you know, maybe get even

21:30

more people fired up

21:32

and sharing your videos.

21:34

Yeah. I'm lucky to be in a situation

21:36

where I don't my my goal right now

21:38

isn't to get more attention

21:40

or even

21:43

money or whatever it is. But

21:46

what is pretty clear from research is

21:48

that shouting at people and

21:51

talking about how wrong they

21:53

are and consequently how

21:55

bad they are and, like, creating

21:58

you know, set setting up the dichotomy of

22:00

the battle of the conflict is

22:03

not good for your cause.

22:05

Like, it does not convince people of things.

22:08

It pushes people to

22:09

sides. That's all it does. They're

22:11

riling up people who are already on

22:14

their side, but maybe alienating others.

22:16

Yeah. Alienating others and and, like, rallying

22:18

up the people on the other side,

22:19

they're becoming fuel for the for their

22:21

opponents by being this way. I mean,

22:24

people when they come up to you in real

22:26

life, IRL, it's it's probably very

22:29

complimentary and thankful and grateful for,

22:31

you know, things that you've taught them and taught

22:33

their kids. And I

22:36

imagine that it's the same way online

22:38

in terms of the comments section and

22:40

stuff like that. Do you read comments

22:43

And do you feel like the response

22:45

that you get in the digital world mirrors

22:48

what you get in in in the real world?

22:51

Yeah. Yeah. For the for the most part

22:53

and and, like, there are

22:55

comments that are accrual to

22:57

me sometimes, and there

22:59

are be people who disagree

23:01

with things that I've done in the past in

23:04

in one way or another because, you know, I

23:06

I am not shy about my feelings

23:09

on some controversial topics here and there.

23:12

And the and so

23:14

I'm like, you know,

23:16

I'm kind of fine with that. It's

23:20

take I could think it's taken time to get there

23:23

and to understand the dent

23:25

to which I am

23:28

some and kind of not a person

23:30

to some people. They don't see me

23:32

they see me as a sort of a shell that contains

23:35

a brand or a I

23:38

don't don't know. And and also,

23:41

I have gotten comfortable with the

23:43

both the idea and the reality

23:46

that I have more power than those people and

23:48

so they feel like they can throw a

23:50

punch and I won't feel it. And

23:53

and also if I throw a punch back, they

23:55

will feel like I just,

23:58

like, stepped on them with a

24:00

transformer robot

24:02

foot. Like, the that

24:04

that, you

24:05

know, you you kind of when you when you're

24:07

on the Internet and you have you have

24:10

following and you have, you you

24:13

have, you know, a status for lack

24:15

of a better

24:16

term. You kinda have to understand that

24:18

you you wield a lot more power than

24:20

you feel like you wield. And I watch people

24:22

all the time, and I really bugs me people.

24:24

Like, I'm not gonna censor myself just because

24:27

I have an army of angry

24:29

people who will attack anyone I attack

24:32

and that we will come into their lives and make

24:34

their themselves absolutely miserable to the point where they

24:36

have to delete their Internet history. I'm not gonna censor

24:38

myself just because of that. And I'm like, well, it's not

24:40

really censoring yourself.

24:42

To not to to, like, recognize that you

24:44

have more power than you once had.

24:47

Right.

24:48

And but that's you

24:50

know, that's the whole separate conversation. But

24:52

it's a good self awareness though. I mean,

24:54

to to recognize that you'd be punching down,

24:57

so to speak, and with a pretty heavy blow

24:59

if you decided to engage in that way,

25:01

whereas the flipside is that people

25:04

may not recognize that they could leave a mark on

25:06

you. You

25:06

know, just because you are They have no idea.

25:09

They have no idea. And people have been,

25:11

you know, we've John and I and my brother have

25:13

made this content And we we have been through times

25:15

where there's been pretty large groups of people

25:17

who, you know, just kind of for fun don't

25:20

like us. And They have

25:22

they think it's just fun and that we're having

25:24

a good time

25:25

too, and we aren't, but, like, we can't say anything.

25:27

These have to, like, live through it.

25:29

You know? It's it's a bad part of

25:31

a good thing. You seem to

25:33

feel like it's gonna get worse before

25:36

it gets better. Yeah. You

25:38

did think it was gonna get better. I mean, it seemed like you

25:40

did anyways. Is that how you still is

25:42

that what you still think?

25:45

Yeah. Absolutely. I don't know

25:47

how it gets better. I think that it's

25:49

gonna be I think it's gonna require lot

25:51

of individual people having a lot of

25:53

good thoughtful thoughts. And a lot of

25:55

good conversations and a lot of time

25:58

and experience with this. think

26:00

a lot about the printing press we

26:02

suddenly had the ability for

26:05

people who disagreed with the

26:07

church, with the Catholic church to

26:09

take it on and say, like, I think that

26:11

you're doing it wrong. And we're gonna share that information.

26:14

We're gonna better at it than you, and we're gonna be more

26:16

nimble than you. And has so many

26:18

parallels to the the sets of conflicts

26:20

that we have now. And it was

26:22

a messy, messy time. It was

26:24

it was very bad and lots of people died and

26:26

it was it was a but like nobody

26:29

thinks we shouldn't have books. We

26:32

figured out how to have books and have them not

26:34

be societally destructive. We figured out

26:36

how to move through that time where it was probably

26:38

for the best that we like, that that like,

26:40

we didn't we shouldn't have lived in a world.

26:43

Where the church had that much power. We needed

26:45

to move into a world where there was more individual

26:47

agency. And I think we're having that

26:49

now. Okay. And that's not a conversation

26:52

about young people and screen

26:53

time. That's conversation about every single

26:55

one of us in the society we exist

26:57

in right now.

27:00

You write these books, and and I'm curious because

27:03

I feel like just reading these books and

27:05

listening to you, it's an opportunity for you

27:07

to get these thoughts out through these

27:09

through these novels, fictional scenarios.

27:12

Do you have an idea or did you go

27:14

through the thinking of what a

27:16

healthy, idealized version

27:19

of social media could look

27:21

like.

27:22

I do think about that The thing that

27:24

I'm working on now, which don't know if it'll ever

27:26

come out, is is about what think the Internet

27:29

could be like if we were. Thoughtful

27:32

and careful about it, but it is very different from

27:34

what we have now. And I think that it's so

27:36

like, it's you never feel like you're in history

27:39

when you but we always are, you know.

27:41

You never feel like you're part like, that this

27:44

moment that we're in right now is gonna be part of

27:46

a much larger story than most of these things

27:48

that we're talking about. And twenty twenty three are

27:50

gonna be entirely forgotten. But

27:53

but we are and we're at the beginning of

27:55

this revolution in

27:57

communications I know people

27:59

who've run big social media companies and

28:02

and they do think about the societal implications

28:05

of what they do and they consider society

28:07

and the world, one of the one of their

28:09

stakeholders along with their employees and their advertisers

28:12

and their investors and whatever. But, like, mostly

28:14

the thing that we're we're fine with is

28:16

like, okay, you've got this technology, use it how

28:18

you can and make as much money as you can because that's

28:21

how, like, that makes sense. We

28:23

haven't really thought about how to do it in a

28:25

way that's really a pro social. We haven't

28:27

thought about how to sort of make the

28:30

tool best

28:32

for a human and best for

28:34

human outcomes. Because that's really complicated

28:37

and it's kind of scary to say, like, oh, I'm gonna use

28:39

the social media platform. It's gonna make me happier. She's

28:41

like, whoa. That

28:43

seems like they shouldn't be able to push those buttons.

28:46

But they can. So

28:48

what is what is that feature look like? And

28:50

and is it dystopian? Or is

28:52

it utopia? Or is it a little bit of

28:54

both because that's sort of what the future always is.

29:00

The future. A little

29:02

dystopian, a little utopia,

29:05

all of it at the same time. It's

29:08

a really kinda beautiful way to look at

29:10

it, an authentic way to look at it. It's true.

29:13

We never know which way

29:15

things are going to unfold. You will be

29:17

surprised. If the impact of these

29:19

technologies will get better, will

29:22

they get worse? Over time, maybe

29:24

it's gonna be both. All that we can

29:26

really try and do is under than

29:28

them. These tools at the

29:30

time we are using them. We can develop

29:33

an expertise in how to use them well like

29:35

Hank said. And at the same time, we

29:37

can sharpen our awareness of how

29:39

they can be detrimental to us. Hank

29:42

mentioned that even for him, someone

29:44

with years now of experience the

29:46

pressures of being online can

29:49

take a toll. And he's probably got

29:51

thicker skin than most. And frankly,

29:53

that troubled me. Because Hank

29:55

is Hank, but I worry about regular

29:57

people. I worry about young people.

30:00

This is something I'm hearing about even from my own

30:02

kids. How people see you,

30:04

I guess, with social media. You wanna

30:06

put out, like, a good picture of yourself, make it

30:08

seem like

30:10

feel like your life is so perfect. Even

30:12

though not everyone's life is perfect. Coming

30:16

up next week, a conversation with

30:18

my daughter, Skye. About

30:21

the pressures of being a teenage girl online.

30:24

This is a conversation I will never forget.

30:27

Plus, I'm gonna sit down with child psychologist about

30:30

the impact this pressure can have

30:32

on young

30:32

people. So we're all just in this like

30:34

feedback loop of looking at perfect pictures

30:36

and perfect photos even though we know that's

30:39

not reality. So we're just comparing our worst

30:41

dates, our worst moments, our worst angles

30:43

to other people's best. And of course, you're

30:45

gonna not feel great when you do that.

30:48

Thanks for listening.

30:57

Chasing Life is a production of CNN

30:59

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31:01

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31:04

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31:34

This week on the X Files with David Axelrod,

31:37

former GOP rep Peter Meyer of

31:39

Michigan. First of

31:40

all, can Republicans win that see if Donald

31:42

Trump is the nominee of the party. I

31:46

think they can. Again, I don't think that Donald

31:48

Trump would be the nominee. Would you vote for him

31:50

if you were?

31:52

I do not want to get to that point. Listen to

31:54

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