Do You Know What Your kids Are Watching? | Awake at the Wheel | Ep 35

They're not equipped to understand what that means and the fact that they are repeating this stuff and parroting it and committing it to memory and making it part of the way that they present themselves is absolutely horrific. Hello and welcome to Awake at the Wheel. So unpopular opinion, but I'm going to go ahead and say it anyways. We're living in a world where increasingly the prevailing message that is sent to youth, to young adults and frankly to adults as well, is that we can behave however we want with little to no consequences. And that's just the way it is. I welcome anyone to challenge me on this. But, you know, having worked with a number of different clients, for example, police officers, countless stories have been shared with me as far as them encountering situations where they now feel that they're powerless and, you know, they're their role as a police officer is not as meaningful as it was in the past. And in many cases, I've been provided with examples of kids who were up to no good, got into mischief, were brought home, and the common response is, well, my little Johnny wouldn't do that, and there are no consequences. So we've talked in other episodes about, you know, what, some of our theories are on this. But I think that in large part this increasing issue is, you know, as a result of but also being exacerbated by the fact that youth and young adults are watching some pretty terrible stuff online. I also sense that parents don't really know what their kids are watching online. And this is not to imply that, you know, oh, you know, swear words and foul language, they shouldn't be watching that the content of what they are consuming. And we've used his term many times before is targeted at children and teenagers. And it is developmentally inappropriate for them to understand the point of it, the nuance of it. And it is really translating into some some pretty terrible behavior. Right. And so I posted this a few weeks ago on Facebook, and I said, and it's just because you mentioned police officers. I said, watch a number of body cam videos and you would realize police today have one of the worst jobs. Imagine, let's say you're working at a store and someone comes in and starts swearing at you, starts calling you names, say, what are you going to do? What threatening you, getting in your face and what would you do? You would call the police, have this person removed from the premises. They're being threatening. They're being intimidated, they're being ugly. It's you know, it's ruining the atmosphere. Yet police officers, you know, they have to tolerate that because they're saying, well, so, you know, these are the states. It's you know, this the First Amendment right. They can say whatever they want. And in the old days, you try that the police would, you know, crack you upside the head, not say it's the right thing to do. Right. And many times in the past, police and still today, you know, abused their power and authority. I get that. But the fact is, when you watch these again, these videos and you're seeing these totally entitled rotten people just acting in ways that it's reprehensible, there's no other word for it. And whether they're, you know, a 13 year old or a 30 year old, they just act, as you say, like as if they can get away with anything. And like I said, I don't think there's anything more or you don't see it. You won't see it more consistently than when you see with police officers and all. Also side note here, if you watch all those videos, you would realize that when people are saying, do you know what kind of thing is happening to this person or a person was shot and killed and they should become a martyr. And now we're going to write, you know, riot and tear down the city because of this. If you actually watch the videos, you'd realize in the vast majority of cases, you conduct yourself properly, you are going to be treated properly and the vast, vast majority of cases. So anyway, it's a little bit of a digression, but to your point, what kids are seeing, what's being normalized, this it's atrocious. And as parents, it is our job and you and I had talked about this in a previous podcast where I'd say, you know, I'd sit with my kids and I would show them, like, that's that's not cool. That's not right. I don't want that because I know when I'm not around, they're going to be watching this kind of stuff and I want them to have their own filter. And I would say sorry to say to too many of the parents, the parents, many of you, you have failed to provide that filter for your kids to realize how. Okay, that did look funny, but okay, this was wrong and whether it's pranks and, you know, a few weeks ago, some prankster was getting in someone's face. The person turned around and he shot him and there was a schadenfreude. So many people were like, yes, finally that idiot. There's no other word for this person who in the UK was going into people's houses with friends, just walked in their house, just sort of sitting on the couch taking, you know, just and they think this is funny the way they walk. I think they can't even I think they went upstairs as well. I mean, if those people were shot on the premises, very few people would have said, you know, poor them, you invade someone's house, especially with home invasions and so on. Yet this is what people are saying it from a young age. If you're a child and you see that and you you know, and you say, Oh, that's funny, I want to do that, that's obviously a bad sign. If you have empathy for the person who does this, who goes in someone's home and everything, if something bad happens in your empathy, I am sorry. I think your empathy is misguided. You are part of the problem. If you you know, if you don't see a person who has a right to protect their own home, their space, their personal property, and it's not just a funny ha ha prank. Now there are shows there. You know, there's a cartoon show just for laughs, just for laughs, sorry, where they would have, you know, these funny pranks and everything. And it wasn't really a it was it was a bit bizarre, but it was humorous. Whatever. Nothing bad happened and so on. But there were other prank shows for the last 20, 30 years, or you see couples doing the same thing where they're pranking each other constantly or their kids or whatever. You think it's funny, but if you think about it, someone's living day to day, you know, always on, always tense, hyper vigilant, wondering what's going to happen. I know I'm going off on a bit of a tangent here, but the fact is that the thing today is what people are seeing online and what parents have to understand. Society has to understand from the young age. I mean, children become what they see. This becomes acceptable, this becomes desirable, this becomes necessary. This is the norm. And so if they're being exposed and this is never happened, history of humanity to as much variety of bad behavior, because in the old days it was a TV and parents had the ability to either turn off or certain shows weren't broadcast at certain times. Right. But with the Internet, kids have access to literally anything. And I don't think enough parents, educators, therapists or, you know, lawmakers. Policymakers have fully recognized the extent of the damage being done to people, whether it's just being rude or being reckless or being murderous. Okay. Now, for the average, I want to be clear. Is this a bit of a bit of hyperbole? But the average person, if they see something murderous, they're not going to do that. If the tiny percentage of people who have an inclination for that, that could exacerbate, you know, underlying tendencies. But when it comes to rudeness, when it becomes when it comes to again, telling off a police officer, when it comes to going into a store and being absolutely rude when it comes to being an employee and thinking, I can take a break in the middle of a busy shift just because, well, I decided to make a TikTok video or something like that, Right? That's what people see. These are the norms. And once again, adults who see it, they get influenced somewhat. Children and teens who see it, they get influenced completely unless they have that filter. And this is the thing, and I feel that there's a big underlying piece of this that is also is not recognized by parents and by especially children and youth who are watching these things. Is that a couple of things. So the examples that you gave as far as, you know, people not obeying the authority of police officers, for example, or not obeying even the authority of their employer and going off and making a TikTok video, I sense that a lot of this behavior comes from the fact that people are, whether overtly, inadvertently or not. I think they're doing this for views and for the fact that maybe maybe this will be posted online and someone will see it and they'll think X, Y, and Z about me. And to that point, a lot of these creators, we we've spoken before about Andrew Tate, we did a whole episode on it. So I encourage people to watch that and see what our thoughts are on the content he creates. But there's creators like Sneako who are also creating content for youth and young adults, and I watched some of his earlier work and he even stated this is a persona that I put out there. It's interesting watching his earlier work versus his current work and seeing the evolutionary, I guess you'd say it's evolved over time, but nonetheless, many of these people do acknowledge that they're doing this for views, they're doing it for likes, they're doing it because this is their persona. But the children in youth who are consuming it don't understand that. And they they watch this, they emulate it. They think that this is real life. And even in their interactions daily with with, you know, people at school or whatever the case may be, I get this feeling that people are consuming so much online and seeing so much of this bad behavior. And Oren, tell me if there's a term for this that I'm forgetting. But I sense that there's this there's this disconnect when people are in face to face situations because they're so used to seeing a face on a screen. And I don't know if they're discerning the difference between real life people and real life interactions versus those online and what they're watching. Right. Yeah, I'm not sure there may be a term for that. Right. But yes, and it's funny because so many people say this and rightfully so, that and this is to your point, they say that the way that you conduct yourself online, you would never do face to face because you get punched out, you'd be criticized to be called or something bad. Would there be some kind of negative consequence? But online, either it's anonymous or, you know, it's not anonymous. There's nothing that they think there's nothing that can happen. But now, especially again, because young people are seeing it from the youngest of ages, they aren't discerning between online and in real life. So they are likely to say and do certain things in person and they don't understand the consequence. And one thing I saw this was a few years ago and again, Mona, schadenfreude, maybe, but there was a bunch of people I can't remember what they were standing up for. I don't even remember. But they're standing and they're trying to build a line. The formation, probably turned the BLM times and they were standing there and there's a skinny guy standing and he's getting in front up front, in front of, you know, some tough guy. Okay. And because he's LARPing, he's he's playacting here. And that tough guy just hauled off and punched him because he got in his face a punched him and he just felt like a sack of potatoes. All right. And most of these people, they've not been, you know, in physical conflict or the threat of physical conflict because it has been all online and they don't realize that there is a consequence. So if those two people had met in a bar, right. This one skinny dude would have never done something as stupid as that because he would have you know, there's something I think some survivor back then realized this guy could hurt me. But in this moment, with all these people and everything like that, because again, they are setting the norm. Yeah. And in this case, they think they're being righteous. But it doesn't matter. All these kids were emulating, right? Really? People they really don't understand. When a child sees from the youngest of ages, they do. They don't have the capacity to distinguish. That's why little children want to be Superman or, you know, if you're not watching a kid, kids are going to jump off the roof, you know, because they saw it in the cartoon or something like that. That's why we need parents. And again, in the old days, it was making sure the kid doesn't jump off a roof today. It's making sure that the child does not. They are going to access it. We know, unfortunately, they will access the stuff you don't want them to access. But we have to make sure that they don't think that this is acceptable. Right. And they need to. Exactly. That's that's the piece of it. Right. Because whether we like it or not, they're going to access it. But it's our job as parents. It is imperative for us to teach them how to interpret this information because again, many times they are not they don't have the developmental capacity to understand the nuance of it and the fact that, you know, even if 50% of what this person is saying is okay, the other 50% is absolute garbage. But I want to share is a perfect example of this with our viewers as far as so I mentioned Sneako earlier. So let's play the video and then we'll talk a little bit about that. Okay.“Andrew Tate!” “Fuck the wmoen, fuck the women! What!? No, no, no, no. Wait wait wait, we love women, we love women. But not not like transgenders Yesssir, We love everybody. No, no. All gays should die! Marcus, Preach! WHAT AHVE I DONE? in the video, Cookie? Yeah, I'll talk to him. Go. Hey, that's not all right. So I'll. I'll start. So first and foremost, that absolutely revolting and disgusting. But I don't know if you noticed this or in but I noticed a brief moment of a look on Sneako's face where he thought, Oh, shit, what have I done? But then that quickly turned into playing along. But these children, I don't know. At most you're what, ten, 12 years old? And to be again, it's not the language. It's not the words which are, you know, a problem in and of itself, but the content and context of what they are saying, they don't understand what any of that means. They're not equipped to understand what that means and the fact that they are repeating this stuff and parroting it and committing it to memory and making it part of the way that they present themselves is absolutely horrific. I'll I'll let you give your thoughts on this before I continue on. Okay. So for people to understand anyone who knows me or knew me as a child, I was a mouthy child. I was the class clown. I was the problem child. Okay. So it's not like I'm a snowflake saying, oh, my gosh, these children are using bad words. And likewise, I had quite a foul mouth for a little girl. But I digress. Right? It's not that. It's the sentiments, the belief systems that are being programed and internalized in these kids and before they even are aware of it. This is literally breeding misogyny. People throw that term around way too much. And I think we've talked about in other podcasts, most people are not misogynists who are called to be called misogynist. But if a child from a young age is being told these things, that is making them into a misogynist. Just like if a child from the youngest of ages is told that certain races are bad, or if being gay or something like that is terrible from the youngest of ages, they don't even understand what half of this means. But they are hearing a narrative and humans more that, well, aside for maybe orcas and a few primates, we have such a complex language system that language is part of who we are. We are what we speak. Our realities are dictated by the words that we use, the words that we hear, the language that's programed into us. So when boys from a young age are hearing this, they're not just parroting it, they are internalizing it. Yeah. And a common issue that comes up in therapy with parents and even with some of the kids that I work with, and oftentimes even in this podcast, we've given the recommendation of, you know, speak up and speak to other parents and so on. So I've encountered a number of parents who have had situations where their child was, you know, either spoken to, you know, in this fashion or, you know, just really revolting things have been said. And when it's brought to the attention of the parent of the child who said these things, sometimes the response is something along the lines of, oh, well, you know, that's okay. That's just what they're seeing online. He knows that that's not true or we're okay with them swearing sometimes as long as they know that it's not okay all the time. And what's what's really challenging and disappointing about that is that that in turn encourages the behavior further. And what I mean by that is I really don't sense that those parents that are just like saying, oh, you know, it's okay, it's the same as what I started out with in terms of the story about, you know, that's not my little Johnny or my little Jimmy who would do that, That type of attitude and that type of complacency and that type of permissiveness is what further encourages this behavior. Because if the kids are seeing that, you know, mom or dad is is okay with it, and I'm not being spoken to about my behavior, it's going to perpetuate. Yes. And on top of that, everything you said, it's also defending it. Right. And we've talked in previous podcasts about that, that because in a normal reality, like in a normal in the old days, if you tried that in person, you would suffer the consequence. Whether someone you know punches you out, whether you get suspended, whether you don't have friends or something like that. But now these kids, because of online, you know, people can associate with like minded people in a typical situation. If there are a hundred, let's say kids, there's 100 kids there, give me a few bad apples, whatever else, like that. But the majority of kids are going to have a certain belief system. Then that's what's going to kind of, you know, or there would be several different belief system. That's what's going to permeate in that child's life. And so even the crappy stuff that they hear, it gets kind of overwhelmed by the more normal stuff, the more societal, acceptable stuff. But with online, the child can filter everything else out and all they do here because they they join like minded people. They all they do here is this really reprehensible stuff. And we have I'm blanking on the name right now. It's going to come to me afterwards. But we know for a fact this has been shown numerous times that if somebody has a slightly extreme position, I don't say extreme, but let's say just off of center a little bit. If you put a bunch of people with that slightly off center belief, it will always become more extreme. It doesn't get pulled back into the middle. So you get these kids, which was something that might seem mild or whatever. So like that you get a bunch of them together and it's going to get pushed further and further into the fringes. And then and it's not. And unfortunately, if it was just a few people find we have to, that's always been the case. There's always going to be, you know, the people are antisocial people on the margins, whatever. But as being mainline into the mainstream, it's not just a few kids. It's not just the margins. It's becoming the norm and it's not everywhere. And some people say, no, in my school, it's okay. They have a sure, I'm certain about that. There are places where it's not that bad or pockets of people. So if you're a parent whose kids are, you know, if they only have good friends and everything like that, good for you. But either A) that's not the case everywhere. And your kid is going to encounter potentially, you know, these terrible pockets or B) you're lying to yourself and your kid is just, you know, they're presenting a certain front to you and elsewhere. They are again, starting to hear that they they may be smart enough not to say it to you or in front of you, but they're internalizing it. And, you know, most in most podcasts, there's a drinking game. This game is going to or this podcast is going to be internalize. People have to internalize a narrative. Or is the double drinking game today because once again, we are what we speak. And if all we're speaking and hearing are these kind of terms and again, the kid doesn't have to act out on it, I want people to understand that your child doesn't have to start wearing an Andrew Tate t shirt. They're hearing enough times. It starts to seep in. And you and I, we've talked about this directly. We've and we talk about this with the Andrew Tate podcast. We are seeing more and more young now adolescents, young adults who are either, you know, evincing these qualities or they're like, what's going on? I can't go on a date without someone telling me about how much they are a high value male or, you know, telling them how how you know, you're lucky to be with me tonight because most women, they are not worth my time because blah, blah, blah. And well, they're getting it from somewhere. And and you know, today's we're talking about the the where the getting it from. Yeah. And that reminds me of a video that I just saw just the other day of this woman who she was an hour late for a date with this guy that she met at a bar. And because she was an hour late, they weren't able to make the reservation for whatever restaurant he had made a reservation at. So he took her to the Cheesecake Factory in the States. So she refused to get out of the car. She, while in the car with him, made a TikTok about how disgusting it is that that he would take her to such a place and that, you know, she's a high value woman and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I bring up this example to touch on what you said, but also to illustrate that, again, this is the type of stuff that young women are seeing as well, right? So, you know, it's somehow acceptable to go on a rant while you're in the presence of some person who's trying to take you out on a date and trying to salvage a date that you've ruined for being an hour late. But there's this this entitlement that comes along with it. So I want to segue, though, into because we're talking about, you know, males and what they're being exposed to, But young women are being exposed to absolute garbage as well, like the example I just provided, but also things like fitness influencers and makeup tutorials, kids as young as six that I've worked with are talking about things like their skin care routine and their fit check and this and that, and they're six years old, and I'm not insinuating that it's a bad thing to take care of your skin or to care about your appearance. But again, developmentally speaking, they don't understand what that means. And what that is going to lead to is them having a hyper fixation and a hyper awareness of their appearance at far too young of an age. Yes. And we know and the research is very clear on this, they've done cross-cultural studies that when you do that, when you have this hyper fixation on one's appearance, this is one of the main factors. Now, there's other factors as well. So but this is a huge factor in people developing, eating disorders, body image issues, body dysmorphia, male or female. And so that was that was bad enough in the old days with magazines or something or TV. Now, again, six year old children, they're seeing that your value is determined by your appearance. And if you're not one of the pretty ones, you know you are not learning. Okay, well, develop these skills, compensate, you know, by doing this, this or that. No, they're just feeling helpless or they're trying to emulate what they're seeing. And it's they're going to they're not going to be able to pull it off, especially if you're a little six year old. Right. And it's we're we're giving people these tools. It's like basically giving a child a tool that if as an adult who's highly skilled, this tool can split an atom, this tool can help, you know, deal with cancer or something that but in the hands of a child, it's a weapon and the kid's going to blow, you know, him or herself up or the people around them. And that's what we're doing. And any parent who isn't aware of this, any parent who thinks, Oh, isn't it cute that my five year old child is twerking? Yeah. Okay. How do you how do you call yourself a parent, first of all? Okay, Now is everything. There's always a spectrum. There are certain things they look, most parents, they will admit, and I'll be the first to admit when their little child uses a swear word. It is funny. It is? Yeah. Because. Because that's the nature of comedy. It's unexpected, right? Yeah. It's not right. So it is funny, but if the child's using it regularly, if the child's emulating what they're seeing and they're talking again with, with, with disrespect and so on, that's not funny or cute anymore. And I just want to bring up one other thing, because this has been around for at least 15 to 20 years. People have been talked about for many years. But if people don't believe what we're talking about, about this, this normalization, this internalization is like everyone starts doing it about 20 years ago or so. You know, I know I'm terrible the years, but someone can go Google WorldStar hip hop, you know, WorldStar hip hop like that. If there was ever a fight, if something happened, people would whip out their phones to start yelling WorldStar. And there was a website that would put all these terrible and we're talking like just knockout videos. It's a really terrible crap online. And it's not that WorldStar is the one that started it, but this idea and we've seen this now that if something terrible is happening instead of people's first impulse being “Oh boy, better call the cops” or “I better jump in and try to do something.” The first thing is to record. Pull out my phone. Yeah. My phone and recording. Yeah. And know if you had a concert. People are not enjoying the concert are they recording? If I'm in somewhere, I'm going to record for a couple of seconds, you know, So for posterity or just any of my friends on stage, I want them to see like I just. Just have a memory of it even too. Yeah, exactly right. But as you said earlier about this disconnect between not being able to discern between what's 2D and what's real, like, people are blending the two and it is so unhealthy, it blurs the line between fantasy and reality. And again, in the old days, whether it was TV, music, TV or movies or something like that, we could do something about it. Even though a certain proportion of people would emulate certain things. Still, you know, if we're talking about really wild, crazy stuff, if it's common stuff like smoking or something, that yeah, people emulating them and that's the norm. But if it's something more extreme, people were able to realize, okay, it's just fantasy. But now again, with people having fantasy right in front of them and you know, they're not discerning as much. And on top of that, it's not actors doing a lot of what the kids are seeing. It's real people. Yeah, right. And by the way, when you said about, you know, about how, you know, influencers are saying that they're doing for likes and everything like that. Well, the fact is these kids as well, if that's what they're seeing, if they're saying, well, that's how you get popularity, that's how you get clout, whether it's online or with your friends and so on, they are doing it for the same reason. But once again, they don't have the mental capacity to realize I am doing something that could be hurtful, harmful, whether it's to me, whether it's to, you know, to the people I'm doing it to. They don't recognize that. And one last thing. If we talked with another podcast, but people are it's actually pretty sad because we are seeing I'm going to go I want to I'm going to put this to two different phenomena. Okay. But this idea that if you're a child and you're seeing people do this outrageous stuff and they are becoming fabulously rich because of it. So in your mind, again, this is a way to become popular or it's just the norm. So these kids are doing it, not thinking about the consequence, whether it's going to lead to an expulsion at school, or whether it's going to prevent them from getting a job or something like that. They are doing it without understanding the consequences. It's all about consequence. Every species on the planet, they learn you keep doing something. If there's a positive result, you stop doing it. If there's a negative consequence and we can do this through also through social learning doesn't have to happen to me directly. If I see someone else having an experience, I can learn from that. Well, what are these kids learning? They're learning that again, these people are doing this terrible, crappy stuff. They're getting positive results, are getting rewarded for doing this terrible things. So of course, these kids are going to do it until the consequence happens. So the second rancher is going to say, I'll say it very briefly, We're talking kids and, you know, maybe adolescents doing this incredibly stupid stuff. The fact is we also see many adults doing these crazy- And I was going to say it was like apropos of previous podcast, when you see professors, when you see politicians, when you see people are high status, we think somehow they achieve this. How do they get their putting out some of the most disgusting, vile, you know, posts? Yeah. All right. Inaccurate as well These are professionals putting in accurate information. And it can be inaccurate as well. It can be inaccurate. It can be vile. It can be it can be inciting people to do some terrible things. And you think, how the hell do they think this is okay? Well, because it's slightly different. But the fact is, again, I'm just trying to draw a parallel because they never suffered consequences for what they were doing, because they were in a certain, let's say, realm. Their bubble encouraged that. So they did it. So then they couldn't discern between, Well, here in my echo chamber, it's safe to say this terrible stuff, but I put it out publicly. I am good. Something bad is going to happen to me. They're not thinking that. So again, these are professionals. These are supposedly educated people can't even distinguish between, you know, again, this this context in that context, how the hell would kids or adolescents be able to do so? Right. And I often say this in the podcast that, you know, we are not fearmongering because we've seen this happen before. And to touch on something, you you you mentioned earlier, we've seen this happen with magazines. So I grew up in the eighties and then in the nineties and that was when, you know, 17 Magazine and YM magazine, where were new and what we saw and what the data does show is that teens and young girls being exposed to these airbrushed than it was airbrushed photos of women who did not actually look that way in real life really got into the minds of young girls. And it did lead to what we saw back then as the social contagion of anorexia and bulimia and eating disorders. And it was a bad scene back then. I don't know what the current data shows, but I imagine there is going to be some similarity emerging if it hasn't already emerged. We're seeing even more advanced alterations of, you know, people's faces, of their bodies, of their lifestyles, and so much more than what the 2D picture in the magazine did to the minds of young girls. And I could go on about the dangers of, you know, filters and all of these things. And people only posting. They're the highlights of their life and the good stuff in their life. But the takeaway message here, the main point here is it's not real life. And kids don't know that. And parents need to be the ones to demonstrate and show them that, you know, this isn't this isn't what it's really like in real life. Well, and you touched upon was going to say, now the technology, which is fun in some ways, but the filtering. Right. And I see some videos or some posts where they show what the person presented online and what they really look like in person. Okay? And so the person who had the date with that, they felt catfished. They felt they had been lied to. This is totally different. Right. And so it's again, if you aren't as attractive as you're making yourself out to be online, find other ways like physically attractive, find other ways to make yourself attractive, you know, develop an interest, develop a skill, you know, learn whatever it is. There are ways, but people are not learning that. They are just taking the easy way out. And it's like with therapy, you can commit to doing the hard, hard work of therapy to help you deal with your depression, anxiety or what have you, or you pop a pill. Well, one of them leads to actual growth. Yeah, mental health, better functioning, and the other is just a bit of a Band-Aid that can help you get through difficult times, maybe. Okay, so it's the same with the filter. Everything. Again, it's the melding of the virtual and the reality. And people are having a hard time again, discerning between the two. And there was one more thing I can say about this. Oh, yes. Here's the craziest phenomenon, because as you said, with the airbrushing, everything that first came out there was a lot of education. I know schools were trying to, you know, have media literacy courses to help people to be able to realize, no, no, this is not real. This is airbrushing whatever, whatever the case may be. Unfortunately, many schools started, you know, let's say, doing away with those kind of classes. It's funny because it was sad because back then they were dealing with more of the rigorous courses, got rid that stuff, which I think is just as important as math or science is to able to be able to consume media properly. And this was many years ago. This Ontario I'm talking. Right And now the sad irony is that the hard courses, the proper courses, everything are being subsumed by or being pushed aside so that they can teach the garbage ideology that these teacher are teaching. A little sad irony, but the point is this here's the craziest part, and this is to help people understand just how powerful these are. Imagine for kids in adolescence, adults, young adults, even adolescents, they will say, I know this is an impossible ideal. I know this is not real. I know this person who I thought was so beautiful, whatever, you know, hours and hours and hours of all this work. And then on top of that touch ups afterwards in the photos everywhere that right. They'll say, I know it. But even knowing it doesn't prevent the impact, they still want to look a certain way. They still feel bad that they don't live up to the standards. Okay. Now, knowing it can mitigate the effects somewhat, but the effects are still there. And these are high functioning adults who can even mitigate. So once again, you give it to a child. What are you teaching this child? You're teaching this child to try to live up to some ideal that is impossible to reach. And, you know, in our you know what? We know this perfectionism, right? And there's different routes through which someone becomes a perfectionist. But I'm going to argue that this is a type that will will you know, I'm sorry, this is a certain pathway that can lead people to develop a kind of perfectionism. And the sad thing is people say, well, isn't it good to strive for perfection? I strive for perfection knowing I'm never going to reach it. I know if I strive for this and I hit down here, I'm doing pretty damn good, right? I understand that. I say I'm a healthy perfectionist. You know, because I don't want to make mistakes or whatever, but I recognize they're going to happen. But for a kid, an adolescent, whatever, they don't have the nuance. They don't have the capacity to recognize that. So they're striving for an ideal they'll never reach. It's going to make them depressed. It's going to make them feel futile. And here's a thing and say with Sneako all these other people who are coming online, it's going to make people feel, why bother? Because either going to trying, they're going to fail or they're going to realize I can't compete with that. And then they see all these people online giving them an excuse like the the Sneakos or whatever, saying, Well, don't even bother trying to, you know, to meet with women or whatever, because they're going to you know, they're going to destroy you. They're not going to appreciate you. They're not worth your time, whatever. And it's for males and females both, right? That's what they're being taught. So they're being taught to exclude themselves from others. And they're not giving they're being given an excuse to not expose themselves to situations or to people where they could learn a healthier way of functioning, a healthier way of thinking, healthier way of, you know, of being themselves. They're not getting those opportunities. They're just taking the easy route, which is surround yourself with like minded people. And if all those people are saying, Yeah, why bother? Because all these men are crap, or why bother? Because all these women are just going to screw you over, right? It's letting them, it's giving one thing and it's giving them an excuse to not try and to not try in a healthy way. And that sounds like so much doom and gloom, But I mean, that is the slippery slope that that is the situation. And if I can go back to what you're saying about perfection. Yeah, I completely agree that, you know, again, adults are susceptible to it and adults have a hard time discerning between real life and what they're seeing online. So if we as adults can't, what are kids to do? But with regard to perfectionism, something that I strive for myself and that I am part owned to my clients is, you know, and you alluded to this as well, that perfectionism isn't really an attainable thing. But if we strive for excellence in everything that we do, that's the closest that we're going to get to to, you know, perfect or this unrealistic, perfect excellences, possible perfection isn't. But nonetheless, I don't think that that mindset is even put into the minds of children at this point because, like you're saying, they see it as it's so defeating because it is so unrealistic and so unattainable that they you know, they're they're left to throw their hands up and say, well, why bother? Right. And that's something that every perfectionist who has insight has told me. They say perfectionists don't see perfection. They see all the imperfections. And those imperfections are so overwhelming, that's what inhibits them. And they don't move forward because they just see all the all the stuff that's not matching up for what they want. And it will apply to the children as well. And there was something you were saying about, Oh, darn it, I wanted to bring it back to those videos that that we're talking about that the kids are seeing. One of the realities and this is with adults. But now if you imagine that adolescents and children are starting from the youngest of ages, I think that we are going to actually where we are. I know for a fact that we are creating people with actual personality disorders. And it sounds cliche, but I'm going to put, you know, The Four the cluster B as a lot of people like to say narcissism, histrionic, borderline and or antisocial personality disorder, everything you and I are talking about fuels one or more of these. Now, a lot of people think that the person who's taking selfies all the time, you know, they have to be the center of the universe, that they are a narcissist. Well, yes, narcissist do see them as the center of the universe, but it's. Only one of many criteria. Right? This one. And when it comes to trying to be the center of attention, when it comes to trying to to attract people through looks to seductive behaviors, however you want to call seduction, I mean, through a total superficiality, absolute lack of depth, that's histrionic personality disorder. And I think people should really start looking into that histrionic personality disorder. And this is what I say to people. It's not even one of the criteria in the DSM, but I say that with histrionic personality disorder. It's not just that people and we may have talked about a different podcast, I'm not sure. But it's not just that people, you know, are shallow or superficial, are trying to, you know, to to draw attention to themselves. It's not just that there's something even more pernicious than that. But I will tell people, if you want to know, true histrionic personality disorder. All right. And I'm not joking and I've actually seen this happen. It's the person who will dress up and go to a funeral in the same way as if they were going to a nightclub. I'm talking about a woman, because if man goes in and I think that's one thing, but if she's wearing miniskirt, you know, fishnet stockings, everything got to a funeral. Right? Because they don't understand because there's this lack of depth. They don't understand if you have a lack of depth, an emotional depth in yourself, that means you can't connect with other people on that same level. And this is the most pernicious part of histrionic personality disorder that I tell people, which is and again, it's not one of the actual symptoms, but is the underlying phenomenon one of the phenomena, which is that that is all the super, the superficiality, which is one of the symptoms, the what it really means is that they don't have that emotional depth in themselves. They can't connect to people deeply in, you know, an interpersonal level. And then that means that they cannot really connect and that means that they are going to say and do things that cause harm to other people, that that sabotage themselves, that they don't have that insight and the wherewithal to recognize that the way I am coming across is going to be a see, it can be seen a certain way by other people. It can be seen as dismissive, insulting, hurtful, whatever it is. And that's the same with narcissism as well, because narcissist don't take other people's perspectives and you don't see how they come across. And correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think that an important piece of that, too, is that they don't necessarily have the understanding of, you know, there is a strong desire to be the center of attention and all these situations, but there are appropriate times to do that and not do that. Exactly. Appropriate times and appropriate ways. And they don't understand that. So if you don't have that depth, that depth, it's again, it's not just about emotional functioning. It's about the psychological. They don't introspect. They're not reflecting on what they're doing. So they're not learning and they're not learning from their experience. And, you know, I think we have talked about this before, but one of the and I predict this many years ago, I described it many years ago, when you have all of your spare time devoted, instead of taking that spare time to reflect on a past experience or on your life in general, or you know what you want to do now, you've got to plan ahead. And every thought that instead of doing that, all you're doing is spending all of your time engaged in mindless activities, scrolling through your right. You are not doing what is part of the human condition, which is this is how we grow as a human being. We we introspect, we reflect that we think about, we gain insights and then we we base our future behaviors, the future thoughts and everything on what we just learned. People are not learning to do that. And there was some person in this tie that I'm going to tie this all together. There was some person I saw a few days ago. Someone else is commenting on them. It's a young influencer. She's walking on the street and she's got her phone and she's saying she's discovered this thing called Silent walking. I mean, how narcissistic do you have to develop narcissistic and ignorant? You have to be to think that you discovered something that people have been doing since the beginning of time. And she was as she was. And I don't think she was being ironic. I don't think she was There was zero insight and people are commenting. And what one person said, you know, that while you're, you know, raving about the silent walking, you're talking on your damn phone, like to your audience. But she but what she was describing was correct, Right. When you go for a walk, when you reflect, when you just take in the nature take in the environment, everything that helps you reset, it helps you heal, it helps you process whatever's going on. So she's correct about that. But for her to say that she's discovered this. But it's it's such an interesting point you make, because a recommendation I often make, and I'm sure you do as well, is, you know, when a client is feeling overwhelmed by a life situation, we recommend that they engage in exercise or going for a walk. And the reason for that is because it allows you to process and clear your mind and so on. But interestingly, I find that I have to add in the caveat of but make sure that you're not on your phone, make sure you're not listening to a podcast or whatever. It's, you know, to able to be present and mindful of of what's happening in your mind and process. So the fact that that is something that increasingly I'm finding, I have to say, I think substantiates what this this woman seems to think is a new and novel thing. Right. And and again, I was talking about this. Oh, my gosh, 15, 20 years ago, I was lecturing to my students and warning them of this. And this was when cell phones hadn't become ubiquitous as they have now. And I told I said it's going to happen. And I said, again, this is part of the human condition. There's a reason that we're able to do what we were able to do with it, to think certain ways. And so I said, we are robbing And I said, this 15 or 20 years ago. I said, it wasn't us with phones, with the computers, whatever I was saying, we are robbing people of the ability to introspect because when you spend all your time distracting yourself, now sitting alone with your thoughts becomes uncomfortable. As you and I have talked about many times, many people can't handle the discomfort of discomfort or some other anxiety, whatever else like that. So they are becoming less and less inclined to reflect, to think about what happened. So once again, if you had a bad interaction with somebody at school instead of sit back, look what actually happened, why did this happen? What did I do? What did they say is, are they really a good friend? What do they mean by that? Were they you know, did they see something that I took out of context or maybe they really have they been saying these kind of things to me for a long time. And they are it really just sort of said of that, what are they doing? They're posting online, they're reaching out to a friend. It's okay to reach out to a friend, but that's all that they're doing. The friend, they're not a therapist. They're just going to echo back something, you know, that you know that you want to hear maybe, or that fits into the narrative of the group. Whatever the case is. But again, the longer and the longer you put off doing the difficult things, the harder it gets to actually do it. I'm telling you right now, if kids from the youngest of ages aren't even having that ability to do that because parents are giving phones to the kids at younger and younger age. And even if a child now five or six year old kids, you know, they're reflecting whatever else, see that but that five or six years old, that reflection is extremely limited. It's it's so it's not like they built it. And now they're going to be able to, you know, do to reach back at some point. No it's you mean whether it's as an adolescent, especially in young adult, especially, you know, after 25 when your brain's more formed and so on. Right. These are the times that people really need to learn these skills. Again, introspection, self-reflection, insight. And we are robbing all so many of society of that ability. And by the way, right now, just one thing. I want to research people because I've had so many patients and they and it's getting more and more. But and in the old days, it was a patient who they worked themselves to death. They're always working, work, work. And it wasn't like they were working so hard because they're going to become the best lawyer in the firm and take over whatever it could be a retail job. It could be something that's meaningless. But they were doing it because they wanted to distract themselves, because they were afraid to be in their head. And in the old days it was a small percentage of people and they had certain histories, They had certain personality and psychological profiles. Right. But now what I'm hearing, I'm hearing more and more people who don't have those histories saying the exact same thing. They're afraid to be alone in their head because they're not familiar. They are comfortable with it. Yeah. And and to that point, you mentioned, you know, five year olds and even younger being handed a phone or tablet or whatever. I strongly believe that we are robbing children of the conditions that are necessary to build those problem solving skills, to build those skills of introspection, reflection and so on, which in turn is going to translate to adults who have zero capacity or very low capacity to introspect, reflect and so on. And I think that that also relates greatly to this huge explosion of anxiety that we're seeing among young people because they don't have and again, we're robbed of the conditions to develop the tools to be able to reflect on what they're feeling, why they're feeling it, how to problem solve it and so on. And they're living in this constant state of anxiety and distraction and discomfort. Yes. And I saw this in previous podcasts. So there's another podcast. Everything in life boils down to control. The most important goal of human function, the most part of every single species on the planet is to control or master your environment. Okay? And what you're describing anxiety is the absence of control. It really is. So when people don't feel that they have the ability to even control their own mind, that's terrifying. I got to tell you, in my class, in my abnormal psych class or my clinical psych class, I had a video once of a woman who had schizophrenia and she was talking to therapist and she said it was so poignant. She says, When you can't even control your own mind, it's terrifying. And this she talked about schizophrenia. And I said, Stuart, I said, imagine that like just trying, was trying to build empathy for them, too, for someone with such a severe mental, you know, mental health condition. Well, the fact is, as you to your point, more and more people today don't feel in control of their own mind. And it's something that you in the old days, we took it for granted. But with technology and everything like that, right, we need to it doesn't come naturally because naturally right now, go to a tablet, go to a phone or something. So we need to at least if parents are not letting you know, are not preventing their children from doing those things, that's becoming the natural reaction. So we need to help. We need parents to be vigilant against this, you know, or about it and to make sure that, yeah, fine, you want to just like with the TV, right? If the phone is something to distract the kid for a little bit while you're doing something fine, you make sure that that child has a certain amount of time in the day to reflect, to play, to learn, to problem solve and everything like that. Because otherwise, yes, the longer you put it off, the harder it's going to be. And I'm going to pull fixing from left field that got a lot of my patients I think we may have talked about before, but a lot of my young male patients write against us telling it's a weird thing, but it does connect right where they were virgins, you know, 18, 19, 20, 22 and like, oh my gosh, the longer I go being a virgin, the harder it is for me to be able to finally go out there and try to lose my virginity because I feel everyone else is ahead of me. I'm going to be embarrassed. I'm going to feel insecure, I'm going feel inferior. I'm not going to know what to do if it happens as a 14 year old or something like that or 16 year old, you know, you learn, you get better, whatever else like that. But as a 20, 22, 24, whatever, it gets scarier and harder and harder and harder. And I'd watch them and I just watch like every week, every month it would get harder, whether it's that or I'm going to if someone doesn't like that example. And to give one more examples of because people inherently feel this, let's say somebody passed away and you didn't reach out or you didn't send a card, write every day that you don't send it, it gets harder and harder to do and you physically feel it like people can actually literally physically feel that. The tension in their chest and yeah, yeah, yeah. That's okay. Because again, the longer you don't do something, the harder it gets to do, right? So think about that. When it comes to again, the most, one of the most important things that we can do, I guess that'll be the other drinking game, right? Introspect, reflect, gain insight. Okay. The longer you don't do it, the harder it gets. And the crazy thing is, this is something that was inherent to the human condition and we are robbing children of that for the first time in history because younger and younger ages are again are being told, oh, no, don't do that, or they're not being told what they're seeing. You know, do this instead. Right. So anyway, we can of all the takeaways, I think that's one of the most important things that we are changing what it means to be a human. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as usual, you know, what can people do about this? We're talking a lot about parents, but I think this, this applies to really anybody because all of us are online, whether we like it or not. That's just the way that the world is right now. But I would say, what can people do? Parents should be very mindful of what their children are consuming online. You know, I actually learned about Sneako from my son because he shared with me that this is someone that many, many of his peers follow and listen to. So I watched a whole compilation of sneakers work, and I was saddened by the end of it because I couldn't believe that then 1011 year olds are are watching this stuff. So it's tedious. It's you know, it's not something that people probably want to do. But I really think that it's important for parents to educate themselves and get a sample of what your kids are actually watching and what they're actually doing online and then have a discussion. Educate your kids on, as you know, again, as much as possible on the difference between real life and what they're seeing online. Help them to develop those problem solving skills, help them to or you should demonstrate what those skills look like, those skills of introspection, those skills of reflection. There's there's so many important things that we touched on today. But I guess what I will say is that whether it's parents talking to their children or adults looking at their own online usage, the ability to reflect, the ability to step away and recognize the content for what it is incredibly important. Yes. And I'll just add to that, to try to have a wholesale change in these behaviors is is not feasible. You know, we have to recognize we ought to make small steps. So and also parents, I'm go back to parenting children. Don't listen to what you say. They watch what you do. Okay. I mean, you listen as well. But the main thing is we know the research is very clear here, okay? Children will emulate what they see, not what they hear. So you have to as well you have to recognize if you're always on your phone, whatever else, what are you telling your kid now? So what I'm saying is, and if you just if you just put your phone away a little bit, you know, like, let's say even an hour, which is quite a bit, if you put away for an hour, the child's not going to see it because they're too busy on, you know, on their own phone. So you have to explicitly tell your child, say, look, I know it sounds like I'm an old person saying blah, blah, blah. But the reality is I, even as an adult, I recognize what it's doing to me. I'm going, you say explicit, I'm going to take some time off or the whole family, you know, at dinnertime, whatever. You start small, even if it's and many parents have had this for years, right? No devices at the table. Okay. For example, or you say, look, you know, and even before bed, that's just that's just mental hygiene. Right. You need to have at least an hour. Should be a couple of hours, really. But, you know, take 30 minutes or something like that before you go to bed. You can't have blue screen stuff like that. And then you have to be on top of your kid. You have to make sure they know why you're doing this. Also understand they're going to go, Yeah, yeah. They're not going to like they're going to really you know, they're not going to really buy into it, Right. But that means you have to enforce it. And we've had other programs or episodes where we've talked about the need for parents to. Parent Right. You are the parent. You can dictate the terms and it doesn't mean taking the kid's phone away for a week or anything like that. We're hoping that drastic small changes and for myself, for example, when I wake up, first thing I do, my phone is right there. I've got to I'm checking text messages, emails because I'm always available to my patients. Okay. If I had all this other work I'm doing, so I'm checking right and messaging can come at me, all these different apps. But I also know that if I'm not vigilant, I'm going to end up going to Twitter X and I'm going to start scrolling. I can be in my bed doing that. It's so insidious and it's so you get sucked in. So at the very least, I've said in the morning, because again, I know that I just the first thing I do is I'm just checking to see because I want to make sure maybe a patient said, Hey, by the way, I want to confirm 2:00. Oh my gosh, I double booked that time or something like that. So I know there's an adaptive value to my checking emails and so on. Right now that might sound like rationalization, but I know for a fact that these are things that this part of my routine as a psychologist is whatever I do. I do that. Okay. But I make sure I say no scrolling on Instagram or X while I'm in bed, right? So it's a little things. And you start with that and again with parents, with your kids, even we talked before with this, negotiate with the kids, say, okay, what are you going to do? You tell me how are you going to help your mental hygiene what are you going to do? Is it an hour? Is it whatever? Get find something and, you know, negotiate with them because once again, it all comes down to control. So if the parent is imposing everything on the kid. Right. Which sometimes you have to do, that's one thing. But if you work with the child and have the child making certain decisions, making certain, you know, parameters and so on and expectations, you're you're modeling for them, you know, and you're giving them the ability to exercise control. You're giving them some self agency, some self-efficacy potentially. So that's that that's all I'm going to add to to that. And I'll add to that a little bit as well, because, you know, setting boundaries as a parent and having this discipline is what will lead to them developing self-discipline. Right? Self-discipline doesn't come out of nowhere. So if we're modeling it, we're setting boundaries. We're setting those parameters in turn, slowly but surely, it will turn into that self discipline. And other thing that I want to add just regarding, though, was it called Silent Walks that the woman was inside? So this this sounds like a, you know, hippie dippy recommendation, but I do recommend this to families often is go on a mindful walk together. So again no devices have it as an opportuniy- and depending on the age of your children. But I've actually recommended like you can even do a scavenger hunt. You can look for, you know, in the fall, for example, different colors of the leaves. The point of it is be in the real world, spend as much time in the real world as you can, because something we've talked about throughout this episode is people's loss of touch with reality and real humans and a real understanding of what's happening in the here and now. We talk about anxiety That's a lot about control, as you said, but also focusing on the future. So for not in the here and now, of course we're going to feel anxious. So again, an easy thing that you can do is go for a walk, go with your family, spend time together, talk, reflect, dream, look around at what's happening in the real world. Right. And as far as we've come, as advanced, as technologies come and so on. The fact is evolution works pretty slowly. So as humans, right? There are certain things that in the beginning of time we know helped with good mental health. One of them is exercise. The other is connecting with nature. As you were saying. Right. So we need these resets. And if you live in the heart of the city, if you live in a condo, whatever else like that might not be that easy. But there's always places where you can go. Now, what are people going to do? They're going to get an app on their phone that has, like, you know, an ocean of background noise. But no, that's not enough. That is simulated. It's real nature. And again, this sounds hippie dippy and so on. And I don't do it as much as I should. But, you know, my my mother lives on the countryside, and whenever I bring my daughters, especially on this one, I say, please reset at night. Look at those stars during the day. Go for the walk. She's got lots of land and everything like that. And there are places, even in the cities, there are parks, Right. It's just sitting there. Again, people don't appreciate this enough. Right. Even if we lived in concrete jungles, as we call them. Right. And we're just indoors, not connected with nature, that would be bad enough. But what we're doing is we're exacerbating it 100 fold by having all the technology. That technology is having an impact on the neuronal circuits and so on. The nature is the reset. We need that you have to do it. It's not again, it might sound hippie dippy, but it's science. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So as always, listeners, we want to hear from you. We want to know what your thoughts are on the topics we discussed today. What are maybe some of the pitfalls that you're experiencing as a parent in terms of helping your child regulate what they're consuming online? Right. And on that note, until next time, keep your eyes on the road, and your hands upon the wheel.