Oprah and Jonathan Haidt on How Kids Can Choose Fun and Freedom in a Screen Filled World

Hi everybody and welcome to the Oprah podcast.

I just want to say thank you for taking the time to be with us because we're talking about a lot of good things here that I sincerely hope can enhance your own life.

Many of you have either bought or maybe heard of Jonathan Heights' mega best-selling book, The Anxious Generation.

And if you haven't heard,

then you're late to the party because this is a book that all parents are using to help them navigate

the firestorms going on in their homes about smartphones and social media for their children.

On this episode, I'm talking with social psychologist and number one New York Times best-selling author, Jonathan Heid, who offers solutions and hope for parents and teens who are struggling with the negative impact of social media and smartphones.

I am incredibly optimistic that we are going to roll this back.

The phone-based childhood only arrived 12 years ago.

We can get rid of it, and I think we're going to.

We're joined by Catherine Price, an award-winning science journalist and author of several best-selling books, including How to Break Up With Your Phone and The Power of Fun.

I've heard from young people who say that their entire childhoods were stolen from them, that they basically feel like they have no memories of their teenage years because they spent all of their time on their phones.

We'll hear from teens who've come up with their own practical and creative ideas to avoid falling into the smartphone trap.

And I was in my bed watching TikTok for eight to 10 hours every day.

So I reached a breaking point and I powered off my smartphone and I put it in a box in my parents' room.

So one of the things that Jonathan Haidt says in the anxious generation is that social media has literally rewired childhood.

as we know it.

And he's back on this podcast this time with a big announcement about his next book.

Welcome, Jonathan Heid and your new co-author,

science writer Catherine Price.

So tell us the news, Jonathan.

Well, the news is that there will be a children's version of The Anxious Generation.

Yes.

Yay.

Parents kept saying, is there something I can give to

my fourth grader, my fifth grader?

She wants a phone.

Is there something I can give her?

And so we had the idea to write a version of it that would be appropriate for 9, 10, 11-year-olds.

But I'm a professor.

I'm not good at writing for elementary school students.

And so I was already working with Catherine Price, who wrote How to Break Up With Your Phone,

and who is an amazing public speaker.

And it just turned out Catherine volunteered for the job.

And she is amazing at writing for children.

And so, Catherine, how does this book differ from The Anxious Generation in that it is actually speaking to the kids themselves?

Yeah, so The anxious generation, as we all know, did a wonderful job of making the world wake up to the issue of what's happening to our children and what has happened to Gen Z, the young adults whose childhoods were destroyed and stolen from them by phones.

And right now we have the opportunity to speak directly to the younger generation.

So the anxious generation is a call to action for people, I would say teenagers on up, to do things to change the experience for our young people, our kids.

But the amazing generation, our new book, is actually speaking to the kids directly.

So it's a complementary approach so that everyone can be on the same page and take action together.

It's incredibly empowering and exciting.

And Catherine, I hear

you're consulting with members of Gen Z

for this project.

And what are you hearing from them?

Yeah, I think it's easy to think that Gen Z doesn't understand what's happened to them, but they do.

And John has heard this from countless people in Gen Z, and I have as well through How to Break Up with Your Phone.

They know what's happened to them.

They don't like it.

And they wish it hadn't happened to them.

And so we had the idea that instead of just having it be the sort of top-down approach, you know, I don't know if you can tell that John and I are actually not teenagers.

So we realized teenagers and kids don't want to be lectured to by adults.

It would be much better to have the voices of people closer to their age speaking directly to them.

And so we've reached out to Gen Z leaders and then also young people themselves who are just interested in sharing feedback.

And we're asking them questions like, what do you wish that you could have told your younger self?

And what advice do you have for the next generation so that they don't make the same mistakes that you made?

And their insights and their anecdotes have been incredibly powerful and it's thrilling to get to put them in the book.

Well, give us an example.

I've heard from young people who say that their entire childhoods were stolen from them.

But they basically feel like they have no memories of their teenage years because they spent all of their time on their phones.

You know, young people are expressing this deep sense of regret for all the skills they didn't develop and and the relationships they didn't have and the experiences they missed out on because they were, their noses were stuck in their phones.

And so it's actually really exciting to then hear from some of the young people who have realized that and who have changed their ways to hear that they actually have taken back their own lives and they start to experience life in the way that we'd want all of us to experience life, having experiences, doing things together.

So on the one hand, it's very depressing to hear how much young people feel has been stolen from them, but it's also really exciting to realize that we can use those insights to create a better future for the next generation.

I find it really interesting because if you're a kid who's 13 years old, you're addicted to your phone, and

you're not at a point where you even realize what you're missing out on because you're addicted to your phone, because you've had the phone since you were 10 or since you were 11, and you've just had the phone.

So you never played, you never had those experiences.

Yeah, but

actually, they are aware of what they're missing.

Are they?

Because they've seen movies.

Well, they've seen movies from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

They know what their parents' childhood and their grandparents' childhood was like.

They're nostalgic for the childhood of the 1980s and 90s when kids did get to go out and play.

So they know that they missed it.

They've seen it in movies and they lament it.

It's painful.

And in the book,

Catherine, you point out that many tech executives don't let their own kids have smartphones.

So why should we, we, the public, be paying attention to this?

I think that's so interesting.

Well, it's really strange if you think about it.

You know, like Thomas Edison didn't tell his own kids, presumably, not to use a light bulb.

But here you have some of the major tech executives saying in public that they don't let their own children use their products, like the CEO of TikTok saying he doesn't let his kids on TikTok.

Mark Zuckerberg saying to Fox News that he doesn't want his kids to be sitting in front of a TV or a computer for long periods of time.

Steve Jobs was famously restrictive about tech use.

A lot of these executives send their kids to Montessori or Waldorf schools that have restrictions on technology.

So I think those are the people who know their products the best because they make them.

They know the things that John and I talk about, you know, like they're designed to win.

Girls who use social media heavily are much more likely to be depressed.

You know, they know that there's a huge problem with sexual predation on these platforms.

They know that young men who game a lot, something like 7% of them are at risk of actual addiction.

They know these things.

They're protecting their own children.

So I think that we as adults and parents need to look to them and actually follow their lead.

And our kids need to know that too.

I think that's very important is that we can't just talk down to our kids.

We have to help our own children understand how they're being taken advantage of by technology wizards who basically want to, as John has said, suck their attention and their energy out of them so that they can make more money.

off of our children's lives.

Yeah, I think it's so important because I know that so many of you parents who are listening and watching to us now, you just get into battles about it.

You just have arguments about it and it is turned into this

area of friction in the home.

And I think on our last podcast with Jonathan, there was a young boy,

Nick, who's 17 years old, uses it in the shower and can't walk 20 feet without being on the phone, his mother said.

And yet, when you started to explain what is happening to you in the the brain, that you're being sucked in, and to the young woman, Umu, who was on that pass show, when you started talking about you're actually less intelligent and less able to function in the world, I think explaining it in a way that kids can see for themselves the disadvantage is certainly more helpful than just arguing about it.

Would you say, Jonathan?

No, that's right.

So, you know what?

I'll say a word about dopamine, which is the key, the key idea here.

And then actually, I'd love Catherine to explain how

we're explaining.

She's doing the main writing,

how we're explaining these scientific concepts to kids in multiple ways.

So the key thing to keep your eye on here is a neurotransmitter in the brain called dopamine, which we get a little pulse of it whenever we get, whenever we do something which is good for us in terms of like biological, like we get food or sex or even companionship.

We get a little bit of dopamine that tells us, ooh, that was good, do it again.

Ooh, that was good, do it again.

And so if you work for something and then you get that, that's great.

That's what you want for your child to learn that work pays off.

But what they did in Silicon Valley was they figured out how to hack the system.

How can we give kids a little hit of dopamine without them doing anything hard?

Like, oh, just swipe, oh, something's entertaining.

Swipe, oh, somebody liked your post.

So what they've done is they've figured out how to tap into our kids' reward systems, give them lots of quick little hits of dopamine, which makes them all addicted, or the great majority of our kids are literally addicted.

It's as though they passed out candy that was laced with cocaine.

The kids took it, it was sweet, it made them feel really good, and then they get really upset when you take the candy away because they are literally addicted.

That is what has happened at a global scale.

And they are children.

And so, so the creators of these media platforms they are specifically going for the dopamine hit?

Is that what you were saying?

Yes, that's right.

That's right.

For girls, they do it through social media.

For girls, they do it with social rewards.

And for boys, they do it especially with video games and pornography and gambling and vaping.

Well, vaping is separate.

But the point is, the addiction is really devastating for the boys.

And the social media, I think, is more devastating for the girls.

Catherine, how are you explaining it in the book?

Go ahead, Catherine.

What do you want to say?

Yeah, so I think one of the things that John and I realized early on, and I know this from How to Break Up with Your Phone as well, is you don't want to come at this from a position of restriction only.

You don't want to just focus on the bad stuff.

There is plenty of bad stuff to focus on.

We could talk for a long time about that.

John and I really wanted to give kids and their parents a positive way forward and to frame this as a choice.

If you truly believe that if young people and if kids really understood what was being done to them and also how good life can be, they actually wouldn't choose this path for themselves.

So we decided to use this metaphor in the book that's two paths that basically kids of our age range, which is roughly fourth to eighth grade in the book.

It includes both kids who don't have smartphones and social media yet and kids who have started to use social media and smartphones.

And we framed it as this choice of two paths.

On the one hand, you have the path of the smartphone as we're calling it, which is shorthand basically for a life that's dominated by screens, not just smartphones, but spending lots of time on all sorts of screens instead of engaging in real life.

And the other choice is the path of real life adventure, as we're calling it, where it's not that you're never going to get a smartphone.

It's not that you're never going to use technology.

We're not saying that we're never going to do that.

But instead, you focus on real-life adventures and real-life relationships and prioritizing real life over a life lived on a screen.

And what we really want to get across to kids is that it's not a matter of saying no to the phone per se, it's about saying yes to real life.

And that's exciting and that's fun and it's available to them.

Okay, great.

Well, it's certainly great to be here with you all on the Oprah podcast for what I believe is a vital conversation for all families.

Do you remember what childhood was like before smartphones and social media took over our lives?

We're talking about how to bring back some of that fun and freedom with social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and science journalist Catherine Price.

We will be back in a moment.

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Welcome back to the Oprah Podcast and thank you for being here.

I am with best-selling authors Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price.

You may have heard of Jonathan's book, The Anxious Generation.

For the last year, it's been a huge bestseller.

Now Jonathan has written a new book called The Amazing Generation, How to Choose Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World.

Let's get back to our conversation.

We wanted to talk to parents and teens around the country to hear their thoughts.

And Lindsay and Pete are the parents of a fifth grade girl and a seventh grade boy.

They are joining us from Concord, Massachusetts.

And I understand you've decided to give phones to your kids when they turn 13.

Is that correct?

That's correct, yeah.

But you have some concerns.

Lindsay, let's start with you.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to our conversation.

Lindsay and

thank you.

In my life, I have, you know, we have a 10-year-old daughter, and we already see a lot of her friends who have iPads, and we already see the mean girl behavior and the social pressure there

building.

And so that is, that's concerning.

And our son is, he'll be 13 in a month.

And we are planning on getting him a phone.

He's expressed feeling like he doesn't really fit in.

He feels left out.

All his friends have phones.

He's the only one that doesn't.

So it's sort of causing more stress now in the house because of this feeling of him feeling left out and not fitting in.

We want him to fit in.

So we're going to give him this phone because we feel like it will hopefully be okay.

But we have some concerns around that.

So is there a way to set limits around the phone and not cause this addiction?

I'll just start.

by saying first, does your son have a flip phone or a basic phone now or does he have nothing?

No, he has nothing.

They both have watches, Apple watches.

Okay.

Well, I would suggest that

if he's still in middle school, don't give him a smartphone.

Give him a better basic phone.

There's the light phone, the Gab phone.

There are a lot of phones that have some functions.

It's fine for your kid to be texting with his friends.

It's not fine for strangers to be interacting with your son over Snapchat or Instagram or TikTok.

That is not fine.

And

so, yeah, so don't just assume that you have to go right to a smartphone in middle school.

Catherine, what would you say?

I think it's that you're in a difficult position and I think any parent listening to this conversation can empathize with you.

So I just want to say that straight up.

I'd also say that I think that as parents we do need to trust our instincts about this, that if something feels like it's not right for our kids, you're probably right.

And in the case of a smartphone, it's the gateway drug to the entire internet.

I always say to people, if you're thinking about getting your kid a smartphone, you should ask yourself, are you ready for your kid to have access to the entire internet?

And are you ready for the entire internet to have access to your child?

And so personally, I would encourage you to revisit the decision to give your child a phone and to see if there's some alternative, like John was just saying, is there a way to give your son a smartphone alternative instead of a full-fledged smartphone?

And I also would say that I totally hear you on the fear of our kids feeling left out if they don't have phones and social media, smartphones and social media.

And in reality, at the moment, they probably will be a bit more left out if they don't have social media because so many other kids have it.

So that is real.

We have to acknowledge that.

But I think what a lot of adults need to think more about, myself included and everyone I know, is we're focused so much on what our kids are going to miss out if they don't have smartphones, but we need to be thinking more about what they're going to miss out on if we do give them smartphones.

And I mean that both in the sense of the immediate experiences and skills and relationships that they won't have and they won't develop in the near term if they're constantly on their phone.

Like John calls phones experience blockers, which I think is a fantastic way to talk about them.

But if you also think about the world our kids are growing up in, one of the most poignant things I've heard from people in Gen Z is they don't feel like that path of real life adventure I was talking about exists for them.

They don't feel like they have that option because all of their peers are on phones all the time and they feel deeply sad about it.

That's why they're nostalgic for the movies John was talking about.

It's why you see so many young people who weren't alive in the 90s wearing friends t-shirts.

They're nostalgic for a time they didn't know they didn't have it.

So So, to me, that's really a call to action for parents, including myself, to say, even though it's so hard, we need to be strong.

We need to join together and do what we know in our hearts is right for our children and say no to these things until they're old enough to handle them so that we create a moment now for our kids and we give them a life in the future.

You get emotional.

It's really, I hear your struggle.

I think what you're saying, Catherine, is so important.

And I could see and hear in Lindsay's voice your own concern and your own questions about it.

But you're going to

override that because you want to make everything okay and want to have peace in the family.

I get that.

But Pete, I understand you work in tech and you have also seen

with your own eyes, experience the detrimental side of what it can do.

And what have you seen?

And how do you plan to keep your kids safe from those negative influences?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, on the tech side, a little more exposed to sort of the addictive nature by design of how people are making money off of these things.

And even as adults, we, even people in the tech industry that understand how these algorithms work, struggle to control themselves.

And if, you know, adults who know everything that's going on can't manage it, I don't think.

we can really expect developing preteens and teens to be able to do it.

And just, you know, building on what Lindsay said, you know, we're planning for a phone, but no social media, no apps, parental controls around those things, because there are dangers out there.

I don't work directly in it, but I work with colleagues in online safety who deal with digital crimes.

I've had personal experiences with people I know who've had their children groomed unsuccessfully, fortunately, through social media.

So these things are scary, right?

And we're aware of them.

But then, like Lindsay said, it's a balance, right?

We live in this digital world.

Phones have a lot of of good things.

We do work on them.

You know, we don't want to raise an outcast Luddite, right?

So how do we find a good balance?

You know, we try and model good hygiene in our own behavior, you know, being at the dinner table or a meal and not having devices there and things like that.

So hopefully, you know, we can help model behaviors to learn how, you know, to use these devices for good and in healthy ways.

without getting sucked into, you know, some of the negative things that are out there.

So one of the things that I've come across in tech, and Jonathan, I'd love your take on anybody's take on this, is with the emergence of generative AI and now that coming into the social media space, how do we think about that as yet another thing to be anxious about for our kids and interacting with?

Yeah.

No, thank you for that, Pete.

AI is going to be the biggest technological change in human history, most likely, from what I read and what I hear.

And I think it's going to affect our kids in two ways.

The most immediate effect is that all the addictive parts of the technology are going to get a lot better.

The video games are going to be even better at hooking your sons and keeping them there.

The social media is going to be even better at sending your daughters and your sons whatever it is that'll keep them going.

So all the current problems are going to get a lot worse as AI comes in.

Generative AI is going to mean that we're going to be flooded by videos of people,

you know, your child might be in a video and it might be her own voice and she might be naked and she had nothing to do with it.

It's going to give everybody the ability to make a movie of anyone doing anything and saying anything in their voice.

So that's really scary.

That's scary.

The other major problem is that we're already seeing

sites like Character AI making AI friends for us.

So our kids got suddenly very lonely in 2012.

That's when all the loneliness graphs go up.

As soon as they move their social life from talking to their friends in in person or on the telephone to swiping and posting and commenting, which is not real connection, that's when they got lonely.

So, what's the cure for the fact that the technology has made our kids so lonely?

Oh, I guess the cure is artificial friends who will talk to your child and be very comforting and always there to listen.

I can't think of a better way to stunt human development than to surround our kids with the perfect friends.

When they hit teen years, it's going to be the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend.

They will never be able to actually flirt with or

interest or marry

another person because they won't be ready for it.

So

we've got to understand AI is super powerful tools that we adults can use to make hard tasks easy, but we don't want to make life easy for our kids.

We don't want to remove the awkwardness of flirting, of approaching a girl or a boy.

We want them to experience that awkwardness thousands of times and they'll get over it.

And then they'll be actually good at dealing with people.

So lots of food for thought.

But I heard you say you're not planning on getting a smartphone.

Is that what you're saying?

You are getting a smartphone, but they're not going to be exposed to social media.

That's the plan, yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, thank you, Pete and Lindsay.

Thank you so much.

Have you read The Anxious Generation?

Have you read it?

Have you, have you, do you have the book?

Okay, thank you.

We do.

And I had the pleasure of seeing Jonathan speak through my work as well.

So great work.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you both for being here.

Good luck.

Good luck.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Last year in the Oprah Daily Life class, I hosted with Jonathan.

We met the Sorrell family, who at the time did not allow their children to have smartphones or social media.

Michael, Natalie, and their 14-year-old son, Mike, join us now from Paul Quinn College in Dallas, where Michael is president.

Michael, have you had any second thoughts about your decision?

None.

No second thoughts.

No second thoughts.

You know, Mike, I often think of you.

I don't know.

I was somewhere recently, I was saying, I wonder if

that young boy, Mike, if he ever talked his dad into getting the phone and how is he doing in the world?

How are you doing in the world, Mike?

I'm doing well.

I'm doing pretty well.

I have not convinced him yet at all, actually, but I'm working on it.

I got some more time, so I'm working on it.

Got some more time.

Got some more time.

Natalie, you feel like giving a child access to social media.

You said this when we talked last year, is like giving them fireworks.

How so?

Well, our girl is now 10.

She just turned 10.

And I couldn't agree more with what Lindsay said.

The kind of friend grew click mean girlness began way earlier than I ever would have anticipated.

And I just cannot imagine.

adding social media on top of what's already happening in her fourth grade class.

And she has a great class, grade school, all that, but it's the dynamics, and a lot of it is age-appropriate and normal.

But when you introduce social media on top of that, I can't even,

I want zero part of that.

And I'm also just not ready to look at the top of the heads of my children all the time.

I'm not ready for that.

I'm not ready to have them just walk around like this all the time.

I'd much rather them be head up, look around, right?

How are these children ever going to learn how to read a room if they're not looking around the room?

That's how we learn.

That's how we learn social cues.

That's how we pick up on what it means to have EQ.

Look at the room.

Did you notice that that person got uncomfortable?

Did you see what was happening after you said this?

Did you notice?

Well, no, your head is down.

So, and the only thing I'll say is that, you know, a delay is not a denial.

We're delaying with real purpose and intent.

And that is to to ensure a little bit of maturity and growth and just kind of postpone things for a little while.

We have them for such a short period of time.

Yeah.

So we don't want them in a bubble.

So do not want.

So does Mike have a flip phone or any phone or no phone?

No, he doesn't have any phone.

He has periodic ability to

use my phone when he's getting his hair cut or when,

you know, with oversight and it listen the reality of it is and i just want to touch on something that was brought up about the ai piece yes that is terrifying one of the things that we've discussed in board meetings is about the young man who killed himself yes because he fell in love with an ai chat bot And the AI chatbot completely transformed him from a normal kid to something that his mother was someone that his mother was really struggling to connect with.

And the young man fell so deeply in love that when the chat bot said that she thinks he should kill himself so that they could be together always,

he actually killed himself.

And so he was a 14-year-old boy.

And there's no way at 14 that you have the capacity to regulate yourself.

And the

AI bot becoming a predator on top of all of the other predators that exist in social media and on phones.

I mean, I just don't see the need to allow other people to spend more time raising my children than I do.

And there at the university, you have yourself seen the

manifestation of what this has done, right?

Absolutely.

The

need for students to get social stamps of approval are greater online than they actually are in person.

I host office hours in the dawn on Monday nights, and it's interesting to see how the students conduct themselves.

If I really want to disrupt their usage of the phones, I have to order pizza.

And, you know, they have to put the phones down to eat.

And that's when we have these really wonderful conversations.

Students still want to connect, but they've been led to believe that the best place for them to connect is online by people who materially benefit from them connecting online.

It's really an insidious

environment that they are living in now, especially considering that the tech, you know, Titans don't want their own children to do this.

But somehow it's okay for everyone else's children to do stuff.

So I just think that it's wrong.

So I'm just curious is how you all have helped Mike

navigate the space of all my friends have it, but I don't have it.

I'm going to say this.

And I think it was Lindsay that mentioned this earlier.

It's okay for kids not to have access to everything.

You're not always going to be invited everywhere.

You're not always going to be, it's okay.

I think fear of missing out has translated from kids to their parents.

And parents are so anxious themselves about their kid being isolated and, you know, not included.

And we've said to Mike, to answer your question directly, that, you know, son, it's okay if you're not everywhere all the time at every function and everybody.

That's okay.

You don't have any fear of, as was expressed prior with other parents here, of

him not being...

you know, adjusted or being the outcast or being ostracized by other kids.

You know, zero.

Our kid's really popular, right?

I mean, he doesn't have a smartphone, but you walk around his campus with him, everyone knows him.

You walk around to events to his games, everyone knows him.

I have watched this from a distance.

If this is what being a social outcast looks like, maybe we all should be social outcasts.

Okay.

All right.

Do you agree, Mike?

How are you doing?

I agree with that one you do you agree that you're popular you agree that you're popular what do you want to say Jonathan and Catherine to this I mean these parents I love these parents these parents are you know steadfast they are not afraid of their kids being upset with them they have

not at all are they afraid of their kids being upset with them and have created this this opportunity for their children to still engage in other ways.

That's right.

So I want to say something to Natalie first, because Natalie, when you and I met with Oprah last spring, my wife and my sister were in the audience.

And my wife was so moved by what you said.

You said something like, I love you too much to insist that you like me, that you were willing to be the heavy, you were willing to.

endure his wrath and resentment because in the long run,

it's going to be so much better for him.

And in in the long run, he's probably going to love you more.

He'll be able to love more.

And that really influenced my wife, who was like crying while you were speaking.

And it's actually encouraged her to have a lot more backbone.

I'm usually the softy with our daughter, but my wife is like, no, we got to hold firm.

So I want to thank you for that.

Of course.

And I think that's true.

I think children appreciate boundaries, especially when they

are put in place out of love.

There's no punishment here.

He's a great kid, and we love him too much to worry about whether or not he's going to like me.

I can't.

This is really, this is a big responsibility.

We take it seriously.

So, but thank you for that.

I appreciate it.

And what I said was very heartfelt.

And I mean it even more right now.

It's very true.

I love you too much to worry about if you're going to like me.

Okay.

And I just want to say one thing to

Mike, which is what a lot of us are noticing is that the kids who...

the kids who are raised without smartphones, they're really present.

There's a coolness.

there's a strength,

they're like real people.

And the kids who are always on their phones are like non-playable characters on a video game.

And so, even though you feel excluded, you're being excluded from a world of losers, frankly.

And in the long run, you are going to be cool because you're going to actually be able to be present.

You're going to be a lot more attracted to girls.

I'll tell you that.

He's going to be able to look him in the eye.

He's going to be able to have a conversation and connect.

That's right.

Catherine, what would you add?

I won't comment on your future romantic prospects, prospects, but I would say that

your guys are clearly amazing, right?

Like these are the stories you're trying to amplify in the amazing generation.

And Mike, I'm going to say, I know you're pushing back on your parents right now, but if you pretend they're not here right now, I don't know.

I kind of get the sense that you kind of know you're amazing and that this is the cool thing about you.

And I was just wondering if you, for one second, could pretend your parents were not sitting next to you, or maybe it's okay.

But can you tell us something you feel like you have gained or something that like makes you unique because you don't have a phone that actually is positive because i'm getting that sense from you that there are many of those things you're aware of oh well i guess it's kind of like i kind of get to do my own thing at times because like when my friends are like hey are you going to this hey are you doing this hey are you there i'm like no i'm just i'm hanging out with my family or i'm doing my own thing i'm playing basketball like there's parts about me that they just don't know i think that might be part of why i think that might be part of it

Yeah, it's kind of a superpower, I guess, is what I'm saying.

And I think that's just so amazing.

So, yeah, I think it's absolutely wonderful that you all are doing that.

And I know it can be hard, but like, I think what John was getting at is a lot of the young people we speak to in Gen Z, they say, wow, I just feel like I'm not an interesting person.

They actually themselves say, I feel like I am boring because all I did was watch videos of other people on my phone.

And I think, Mike, what you are is an example of a young person who is not boring, specifically because you're not spending all that time on your phone.

No, I think this is the story.

This is a model, model story.

Sorell family, applause to you.

Applause to all of you.

Thank you.

And Mike, I'm glad you're, I'm so happy to know that you're popular.

Popular.

So happy to know that.

All right.

Good to catch up with you all.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay.

And he's a handsome boy, too.

My God.

Yeah, I predict that the girls are going to be all over him because he's going to be like one of the few who knows how to actually have a conversation and connect.

I am thankful that that you took the time to listen and meet up with me here on the Oprah podcast, where we're having conversations that I hope can serve to inspire you or enhance your life.

When we come back, we'll hear from a teenager who made a courageous and unlikely decision for her future by giving up her smartphone.

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Hey, thanks for being here.

Welcome back to my conversation with authors Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price.

We're talking about what parents can do to help their kids engage in real life again.

They have co-authored a book that can help you.

It's called The Amazing Generation, How to Choose Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World.

Logan is a 19-year-old who made a very bold decision four years ago.

She joins us now from the campus of Oberlin College in Ohio.

Hi, Logan.

Tell us what happened.

Hi.

Hi.

Yeah, I'm so happy to be here.

I got a smartphone when I was 10 years old and I watched the next five years fly by.

You know, everything that everyone's already said really resonated with me.

Social media has rewired childhood.

I,

you know, I have few recollections of this period because I was, you know, so involved in this oversaturated media.

You know, the mean girl setting was very prevalent at a much younger age.

And it got to a point during COVID where I finally had the time.

I so desired after school and just throughout, throughout this period, to just be with my technology.

And I did that for eight months.

I sat in my bed and tried not to let my phone fall on my face.

And

I

came to a point where I started to see content of people online actually doing things with their COVID time.

I mean, for the financially comfortable, COVID was a time where you could pick up a book that you'd thrown down, you could make bread, you could go on runs.

And I was in my bed watching TikTok for eight to 10 hours every day.

So I reached a breaking point and I powered off my smartphone and I put it in a box in my parents' room.

And my motivation there was that in the middle of the night when I really craved the smartphone, I wouldn't want to wake them.

So I wouldn't go, I wouldn't go get it.

And I mean, almost immediately, something flipped in my brain.

Things really started to change for me.

And I never went and got the smartphone back.

And so that was, that was four and a half years ago.

And then in the past four years, we've got to get it.

Something did actually flip in your brain, correct?

Catherine?

Yeah, something actually did actually flip in her brain.

The dopamine hits were were no longer there.

That's what happened.

Right.

I think exactly what you're saying is correct.

You actually noticed that your brain went through a period of withdrawal from not getting the constant dopamine stimulation that's provided by smartphones and short-form content on platforms like TikTok.

And then once you went through that, right, there's a valley.

There's going to be a low point.

And adults go through that too when they start to spend less time on their phones.

But if you can make it through that valley, you start to see exactly what you're describing, which is that there's this beautiful, wonderful world on the other side with all of these things to do and all these people to spend time with.

And it's so much better than, as you're saying, just lying in bed staring at TikTok for 10 hours at a time.

And how did your life change since giving up your smartphone?

I came out of that period, I mean, healthier, happier, more confident, more social and more intellectual.

I mean, I started to read for the first time in years.

I finally got back that childhood.

you know, rigor to read that I had lost for so long.

Wow.

And so now I hear you've started a movement to encourage other teens to do the same, to give up their dependence on their smartphones.

Tell us about that.

So when I initially went phone less, I was kind of on my own doing it.

And it was very difficult.

It was like a transitional period.

I kind of had to rework my friendships, get people to email me.

And then that was hard.

But one day I met a girl who also, she had a flip phone.

And we quickly realized that having someone else to do it with was so powerful.

You know, even just hearing from some of the parents today, I think when you try and go at it alone, it's totally possible you can do it, but it's harder.

Community is so important during this time.

So we quickly realized that if we could get a group together of like-minded teenagers, students who were trying to do the same thing, not only would our success rate be higher, but it would just be an easier transition for us.

So in 2021, we started the Luddite Club, a group for

other students who wanted to use their phone less, wanted to get a flip phone.

Whatever it was, we accepted everyone from whatever stage they were, they were at in their transition.

And the club has been going on since then.

This summer in 2024, we turned the club into a nonprofit so that we could reach more people nationwide and help more young people help others.

You know, I think we're really big on autonomy.

We're not big on preaching.

And,

you know,

the most amazing thing is we've built this nonprofit, this sort of youth organization that has students around the country participating.

We've done it all off of social media.

And it's possible and it's flourishing.

Yeah.

Catherine, what do you want to say to Logan?

Logan, bravo.

Yeah, I would say that, Logan, this is why we're already in touch about including the story of the Luddite Club in John, in my book, The Amazing Generation, because it's so inspirational, right?

Like anyone listening, like this is what could be.

Like Logan's an example of a young person who woke up and saw the light and made change and also realized it's easier and it's most importantly more fun when you do it with other people.

So yeah, I applaud everything you're doing and I cannot wait to help get more people to become Luddites in the way that you describe that.

Fantastic.

I'd like to just add, my kids go to Brooklyn Tech High School here in New York.

And I know that

there was a chapter of the Luddite Club at Brooklyn Tech.

I couldn't get my daughter to join it, but at least I feel somewhat connected to it from the fact that it is local for us.

And I think one thing that Catherine and I are so thrilled by is

if this is such a big problem, childhood has been rewired.

We can't, to change this, we need everybody.

We need the adults, the parents, the congresspeople, the doctors, the teachers, the administrators.

We need everybody.

But if the kids are silent and it's just.

The adults are saying, oh, we've got to save the kids, that's not so compelling to the kids.

But when you have examples popping up all over the country, if you go to anxiousgeneration.com, we have a link to lots of aligned organizations, including a bunch of other ones that are started by Gen Z.

So to see members of your generation stepping up and saying, no, this is bad for us.

We, no matter how hard it is, we're finding the guts and the discipline.

We're going to

unplug.

and we're going to re-embrace life and childhood.

So thank you.

We're just so thrilled to see the example of your group and the LudditClub.org if anyone is curious about it online.

Thank you so much.

Logan, bravo, brava, brava, brava, brava, brava.

Great.

I hope you stay with us because I'll be back with Jonathan Haidt and Katherine Price talking about how young people can take back their childhoods from technology.

That's after a quick break.

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Hi, I know you have a busy life with a lot of demands on your time, so I am honored that you chose to join us here on the Oprah podcast.

I'm with Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price talking about their forthcoming book, The Amazing Generation: How to Choose Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World.

Catherine and Jonathan, what do you want to say before we go?

Well, I'll start off by just saying this problem seems so big, and the main criticism I've gotten in the last year, it's there's almost nothing about how I got the story wrong.

The criticism is almost always, oh, it's too late.

Oh, it's hopeless.

Oh, the technology is here to stay.

But what we've seen since the book launched last April is that parents are fed up, teachers are fed up, legislators are fed up because they're parents, and kids are fed up.

So I am incredibly optimistic that we are going to roll this back.

The phone-based childhood only arrived 12 years ago.

It hasn't been there that long.

We can get rid of it, and I think we're going to.

Catherine, what would you add?

I would echo everything you've said.

And I'd also speak directly to parents who are listening and who have read The Anxious Generation and have felt very anxious about it and have stayed up at night thinking, oh my goodness, what have I done to my kid or what am I going to do to my kid?

And I want to say that that's why we're writing this book, The Amazing Generation, because we want to empower you and your children to make a better choice.

And we're just so excited to get the chance to do so.

So thank you for

inviting us to have this conversation and to introduce the book to the world.

Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price's new book, The Amazing Generation: How to Choose Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World, will be available wherever books are sold.

You can pre-order it now.

Thanks to all of you who were a part of today's conversation: Pete, Lindsay, Logan, the Sorrell family.

Go well, everybody.

Thank you so much.

You can subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.

I'll see you next week.

Thanks, everybody.