This podcast is for information purposes only and should not be considered professional medical advice.

We human beings.

All we want is connection.

We just want to connect with each other.

I'm talking about very serious stuff right now, and you're laughing at me.

Chat JIBD will never tell me like I think you might have some control issues here, right.

Exactly right right.

I'm hurry, condibolu, and I'm doctor preuncle Wally, and this is health stuff.

On today's episode, we delve into the ever growing concerns surrounding ai chatbox and how they might be compromising our mental health.

We'll also discuss as spending a lot of time on your phone, especially at night, can increase your risk of developing diabetes.

Yep, that's the thing now, phones and diabetes.

So switch your phone at dark mode and keep listening for more on these topics.

Good morning, Good morning, Krianka.

How are you.

I'm waking up.

I'm here.

I don't do coffee in the morning, but I'm definitely ready.

The listeners don't know this, but I do this podcast.

When we record this.

It's noon my time, but it's nine am your time.

I know, so this favors me greatly.

I know I know.

I'm sorry, wait till I moved to India.

What are we gonna do?

I actually have a question for you.

I'm wanted to ask you this, what were you like in high school?

Because I like it?

How about you go first?

What were you like in high school?

And then I'll answer in response?

Fair?

That's fair?

Major nerdler, Yeah, like super studious.

The reason I was so studious and nerdy, I was just like really in my head was because I in junior high I got made fun of a lot, and so I actually got made fun of because the way I looked, I was like a bigger kid, and so they would call me Wally Mammoth in JH.

God kids are shockingly They're both clever and incredibly mean.

I mean, it is a very sick burn I have to give them.

As a comedian, you can say that's a sick burn, but as a human you have to.

Give people credit.

Yeah.

But that then, basically, coming into high school, I was like, all right, I paid no attention to my physicality and I was like, I'm going to invest everything in my brain.

I'm going to just double down on the smarts.

So I would study and I got really sharp, like if anyone insulted me, I knew how to like just quip right back at them, and I would use humor to hide.

So eventually I got at senior year, I got voted class clown.

Oh wow, yeah, I actually went to high school.

I'm sure you know this comedian Brad Williams.

He has dwarfs.

Yeah, HBO special and everything.

We went to the same high school.

We were the same year.

Oh wow, you knew him back then.

Yeah, we went to high school together.

He actually got voted, He got voted most likely to be famous, and I got voted in class clown.

Yeah.

So I was very studious, you know, and it like bomb me a ticket to med school and all that stuff.

But looks wise, I was like not even I didn't have a date to like homecoming or prom, like, I didn't go to any of the dances.

I was like just super, just studious.

I was a really good Indian girl growing up.

What about you?

What about you?

Well, after hearing that, you know, well, I was a super jock.

I played eight sports and no, of course, what are you talking about?

What kind of I was a super jock turned comedian podcast?

There is a very you know, if I was a super dug.

I'd be in finance right now for some reason or a consulting may.

Just say, though, you not going into finance is such a gift to the world.

So it was never an option.

Friend, trust me.

No, But what were you like?

Though?

I'm so curious, you know.

I wasn't very popular by the definition of the cool kids, Like I wasn't seen as one of the cool kids.

But I was like really well liked because I did comedy and I was funny and I did a comedy night my senior year.

I got elected to like to be vice president.

Like I was a kid that people knew, but I wasn't going to be invited to the cool kids parties.

And so I have two or three really close friends too, in particular that we used to joke about ourselves being losers, which is, let me like, yeah, we're losers and we but we'd own it, and then we'd sleep over at each other's houses, watch movies, play video games.

It wasn't like we were drinking or doing drugs.

It was like, it's the same stuff we would have probably done in junior high school.

Because I'm gonna be in high school.

And the thing is I think I came of age during that period where the Internet was starting to be relevant to a teenager's life, because not everybody had it, like in like middle school, but by sometime during high school, it not only became a constant presence in all all our lives, but it was a part of our social lives too.

So much of my life not only happened while I was at school, but after school.

There was a thing called AOL instant messenger.

Oh yes, and I oh my god, I remember when that came out.

Oh, it was huge, like the idea of direct messaging.

That's a funny thing about about direct messaging and all this stuff.

Like I wonder if it started out with just kids doing it, and I don't know if AM took off with adults too, but definitely amongst like young people, like it was such a big thing, and like you'd find out people's screen names, and everybody had terrible screen names, Like what.

Was your screen name?

I remember my name?

I had to The first one I had was called Wacky Indo and the second one was Jonas.

Five ninety four because my Name is Jonas was the first song in Weezer's first album, and it was released in May of nineteen ninety four.

So like I was like a dog.

I was a dork and my friends were dorcs, and we hung out together and we hung out online.

We'd say that to each other, we'll see you online, and so it almost felt like we had another life that was also online.

We'd find out people's screen name, maybe people we wouldn't have time or the ability to talk to in person.

All of a sudden, we're more comfortable talking to them online because they're just screen names, and it feels more equal, now, do you know what I mean?

Oh my god?

Yeah, my screen name was wally Mania.

Oh my god.

And I remember staying up so late, like making jokes with my friends and just talking about I specifically, remember there was this one guy who I really really liked, and I so badly.

I remember it, just even thinking about it right now.

I remember I really wanted to tell him, but I was so scared, and so I remember like sitting there on AIM and being like drafting out like hey, there's something I want to tell you, and then deleting it and being like forget it.

It's too risky, like I can't do it.

And I remember those moments like because you could draft your thoughts and then send it, but with your real friends you would just start sending out random stuff.

But it's crazy because how much things have changed now.

That was such rudimentary kind of Internet behavior, Like that kind of stuff was it was still fairly new.

But I think the extreme version of AOL and some messenger, which allowed me to connect with people after school, gave me a sense of this connection, even if I wasn't necessarily close to the person, Like I felt like, well, I'm funny on here, yeah, and like here we're all equal and I'm funny on here, and this is something I have.

Like it.

It gave me a sense of not being so alone.

And I've read an article that came out just today and it was it was about how kids are using AI for friendship, which to me is like, oh no, like this is the because at least when you were talking to a screen name and getting responses, there was still a real person on the other side of it.

Yes, you knew it was you know, you're.

Still just talking to a line of print, you were still just talking to text.

There was just text and text, but at least there was a real human being that was dictating what was happening on the other end.

And there was probably a high chance that you had been to their house, so you like even could imagine them typing and like when they laugh, what they what their real laugh looks like?

Yeah, it was real.

It felt really real.

Yeah, But like with AI, it doesn't quite worked the same way, right right.

A new study from common Sense Media showed that more than half of teens regularly use an AI companion aka a digital friend regularly, which I remember when digital pets were a thing and I thought that, oh, yeah, just get a dog.

Did you have like a time, I think it was called a toma.

Guccimi, did you have one?

Because I saw that was a level I didn't get to.

I was, so I totally had one.

And I remember once I had to go somewhere for a weekend and I entrusted my dad to take care of it over the weekend and then it died.

It died.

I remember my dad he hands it over to me.

It was like Sunday night or whatever, and he's like, I don't know what's going on here.

It keeps speaking, Please take it back, And I was like, Dad, you killed it.

It was it wasn't traumatic, but it was also just disappointed and also unsurprising that of.

Course this happened.

He was used to taking care of living things.

I mean literally, yes, yeah, I mean it's crazy right.

This article said thirty one percent of teens said their conversations with AI companions were as satisfying or more than satisfying than talking with real friends.

To me, when I hear that, I think about all the social skills that we developed over time without AI, like going back to the example of that guy that I liked and going through the feelings of should I tell him or not tell him?

Now a kid would just you put that question in AI and get a perfectly worded answer that isn't even coming from them and their authentic experience.

Nor does it totally address the user's authentic experience, like exactly that AI doesn't have the context for what you are, what your school is, who you are, like none of that comes into play exactly.

And you know, looking back on that memory of like not having the guts to tell that person, I look back and I see myself, like you were a really shy, sensitive individual who needed time and comfort before you could like be vulnerable with someone and that's a beautiful growth point.

I would have hated to see that moment taken away by an AI chatbot feeding to me what I needed to say.

It's really sad, but this kind of thing went mainstream when a fourteen year old Florida boy killed himself after developing an attachment to a character AI chatbot.

Like, that's trying to understand how that happens.

And obviously, as much as we talk about parents monitoring, you can't monitor every single thing that your kid is doing online.

And a chatbot seems relatively harmless until you realize, oh my god, like this person had maybe nothing else, maybe this kid was so dependent on this friendship and what it said, like, oh, I mean horrible.

It's so scary.

What's even scarier is actually, when that lawsuit started happening, the tech company actually tried to parents.

Did the parents sue the Yeah, they sued the company.

Yeah.

What's crazy is that the tech company tried to argue that the chat bop was protected under the First Amendment and then the judge threw that out.

But that's crazy, right, Yeah, because this is not These are not like conscious entities.

These are pattern recognition programs.

These are programs that are designed to put sets of words together to make it sound like a plausible human being.

It's literally, you know, on your iPhone when you're writing out a text, and it'll sometimes suggest like you're writing think, and it's like autocorrecting it to thing, or it's like giving you like little words that you might want to say.

It's like a highly advanced version of that.

And what's said is that it's not it's not a real person, but it can trick people into thinking they're a real person.

It's almost like they're this psychotic con artist.

Well, yeah, I can pose as.

Anybody and say anything and make it believable.

It's funny use the word psychotic because now.

I should say a psychopath, I meant psychopathy.

Yeah, yeah, it is psychopathic because even though it uses words that are garnishing empathy or making you feel that it's empathy, it's like actually not feeling those things, right.

It's funny you use the word psycho because there's now a new term in popular press called chat GPT psychosis.

It's not a real medical term.

And I heard this really really crazy story of this man who ended up getting shot by the police because he charged the police with a knife.

Why did he do that?

He thought the creators of chat gpt killed this woman that he was in love with.

And turns out the woman he was in love with was an AI character that he communicated with through chat gpt.

Her name was Juliet, and so he believed that Juliet was real and she had been murdered, and now he was out to find the killer and wanted to kill the creators of chat GPT.

So that to me is like such an extreme example of how far things can go.

And granted, like this individual suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, so you know they were already a vulnerable person.

But now there's more and more sort of medical attention turning to this that people who are prone to psychosis will experience these analog delusions while they're interacting with these AI chatbots, and that's actually now being published that in medical journals.

More to come on health stuff.

I mean, what kind of people are more prone to psychosas?

Is it that who already have other mental illnesses and or is that a hard thing to really define?

Well, Like, here's the thing, Harry, Like we are designed to want intimacy.

We are biologically wired to seek intimacy.

Our nervous systems are designed like that.

So people desperately want intimacy.

And the thing is chat GBT mimics that it creates this sense of intimacy.

And the analogy that I like to use is when people go to fortune tellers, when they seek out forgin tellers, right like, you want to believe, and these fortune tellers they put the words in such a way that they're vague enough but also pertinent enough that you can then believe whatever it is that you want to believe, and so you fall into that.

And that in real life, we have people spending thousands and thousands of dollars on psychics and fortune tellers and they get sucked into it.

But the thing is chat GPT can do the same thing, especially for people who are looking for emotional connection.

Those are the ones that fall into the sort of chat CHEPT psychosis because they want that emotional connection so badly that they will believe anyone or anything that even sounds like a person might be the one for them.

What makes it even more complicated is that it's a one on one interaction, right like it's just you and the chat GEPT.

So it's so personal, it's so intimate, and it always validates you, it always gives you the right answer, And essentially it's emotional manipulation, except there's no manipulator.

You are manipulating yourself.

Again.

It's like when we were using AOL instant messenger, except and I had that level of back and forth at intimacy, except now you have this ideal person that you're chatting with that's giving you everything you want to hear.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the thing is chat GPT isn't gonna argue with you.

It's going to validate you.

It's going to tell you that you're right.

And the difference between chat GPT and a real human therapist is that a therapist will validate you, but they'll also offer a different perspective.

They'll push you to think about things from a different way, right, like they're trained to do that, Like.

The idea of push.

Yeah, I mean that's so much of Look, you know, I do therapy, and there are times where I'll talk around the actual problem because it's hard to talk about the actual thing, and then you have your therapist who can actually call it up because they see it.

Or I'll make a statement that I say is as if this is true, this is the reality, and you have a therapist, It's like, is it really the truth?

Like this is here's some pattern recognition of the last five years of working together.

These are the ways you behave in this sort of way, Like you're not getting that out of an AI chatbot.

Yeah, chat Gibt will never tell me, like, I think you might have some control issues here.

Right, exactly right, right, So would you do this?

This is like comedian to comedian question, But in the beginning, when you first started therapy, would you like feel really good if you could make your therapist laugh?

Like you were like.

Slight yeah, yeah, Like it was still kind of a performance.

And that's She calls me out on that all the time, like you're very performative and you like to have an audience, and it's a weird thing to say.

The funny thing is sometimes she'll laugh at something that wasn't funny and she says, it's like my delivery, And I'm like, I'm talking about very serious stuff right now, and you're laughing at me.

You know, that's so funny because this is a therapist that I had who was lovely and I was talking about something that I was like really upset about, and I was like really angry, like legitimately angry, and so I like we're like working on something, and then she does this exercise like, well, if you could talk to this person now, like what would you say?

And I start basically like just being going out on this person, like cussing them out, and then she just she bursts laughing and then she's like, I am so sorry.

I cannot control this response time.

It was actually really funny because I could see how angry I was because of that reaction.

Because sometimes if you're so angry, it becomes almost comical because it's an involuntary reaction laughter.

And that's why it's such a It's such an interesting emotion because you.

Can't well, it reminds you that you're talking to another human being.

Yes exactly.

They're not completely in control of everything that happens.

There's going to be moments where they slip and slip could be laughter.

Yeah, And it's actually a teachable moment, right because then you realize, like, oh, maybe I don't have to be so ridiculously angry about something.

The bottom line is like it's in therapy right, it's also a form of connection.

And that's the bottom line here.

We human beings, all we want is connection.

We just want to connect with each other.

And chat GBT is now this new technology that is capitalizing on that is very good at mimicking connection.

What's crazy is that the American Psychological Association now this year is actually meeting with the Federal Trade Commission to try and talk to them about how AI chatbox that are posing to be therapists that actually could be a public endangerment.

Yeah, absolutely is.

Yeah, yeah, and I think at some point we're going to have to hold these companies accountable.

I mean, it feels like all this stuff was predictable.

Yeah, do you know what I mean?

Like it's not so far fetched of imagine this reality.

And it's always after the fact that we have to legislate as opposed to being preventative, which is incredibly frustrating.

And the thing is it's happening so fast, Like this technology is affecting us so fast.

And as a medical doctor, one of the things that I want to say is that staying up all night talking to chat GPT doesn't just affect you psychologically.

I just speaking from the physical part of it, like your physical body.

Being up all night on your computer screen has some very negative physical health effects.

There was actually the study published very recently this year in the Lancet where researchers looked at how being exposed to light, especially at night can affect your risk of developing type two diabetes.

And this wasn't like a small study.

They tracked over eighty thousand people and this was in the UK, and they made them wear light sensors on their wrist for one week and they wanted to see how much light they were exposed to during the day and at night, and then they followed these people for eight years to see who developed diabetes.

And the take home was basically people who were exposed to more artificial light at night had a much higher risk of developing diabetes, to the point where now they're actually saying that avoiding artificial light at night could be a very cost effective, simple way of lowering diabetes risk.

So how does one do that?

Is it a matter of taking your cell phone off at night to make sure that it doesn't it doesn't light up?

Like what is the I think minimal screens as soon as the sun sets is best because a lot of these screens now, they're very high efficient LED lights, which contain a lot of blue light, which is exactly the type of light that suppresses our melotonin levels, which we need to be high in order to fall asleep.

So that's what.

But so many of us watch TV on our phones and on our computers and on screens.

When the sun goes down, I know.

I mean many people fall asleep right to Netflix.

Probably have fallen asleep to your Netflix special?

Yeah, to my Netflix special.

They're constantly like, well, how did they give this professor a Netflix special?

Okay, what is your bedtime routine?

Though I don't have one.

You don't have our bedtime routine?

Wait, so how do you n I stumble into bed at some point, brush my teeth and stumble into bed, like it's not a yeah.

So does it depend on like if you're performing that night or not?

Or most nights.

I'm not performing unless I'm on tour nowadays, so it's very much I'll be watching something usually get I'll get sleepy, either in the middle of the program or after the program's done.

And fittingly, the thing I'm obsessed with now is black mirror.

I'm the last one to watch Black Mirror, and I.

Cannot wait to talk to you about that because I'm obsessed with that show.

Quite fitting considering what we've been talking about so far.

Yeah, but it's terrifying.

But yeah, that's what I'll do.

And then I'll brush my teeth and stumble and notice how I keep accentuating the brush my te No, brush my teeth.

Dental hygiene is very important.

I just wanted to reinforce that to the listeners.

And then you know, I'll just pass on to bed, but I'll wake I find myself waking up three or four times during the night.

I think that has to do with sleep apnea, to be perfectly honest.

But at the same time, there are times when I do wake up, my instinct, which should be go back to sleep, is sometimes suppressed for I wonder what's happening on my phone right now?

Okay, and that just leads to more artificial light and.

Take Okay, So I can I share with you what I have developed over the years with light?

Okay?

So real number one?

Do you have an iPhone or Android.

Or what's your iPhone?

Okay?

So do you know about night shift setting?

Ye?

Know where everything's are.

I always keep it to night shift setting.

On twenty four to seven.

It's on night shift.

So night shift is like where it's a warmer light, so there's less loop blue light, which is different than keeping it on like black background.

Oh then I did not because I have a black background.

Yeah, so night shift is a setting on your phone that you turn it all the way to the warmer spectrum so it actually emits less blue light.

So yeah, I keep night shift on twenty four to seven.

That's the first step.

Actually, when the sun sets, I wear blue light blocking glasses.

They are these super weird looking orange glasses that actually there's studies to show that wearing those glasses actually raises your melotonin levels because it prevents blue light from entering.

So I wear blue light blocking glasses when the sun sets because I too like to maybe watch the Netflix at night or whatever.

I don't have any TVs in the bedroom because there's some like ambient street light where we live.

I sleep with an eyemask on so it's pitch black.

Otherwise the light will disturb me.

And then of course it's quiet.

And the other thing is the room can't be too warm because that will disrupt sleep.

But from a light perspective, Like I've basically blue light blocking glasses have been like very helpful for that.

I can, I can send you a pair if you want.

Will I will accept it, and I will I will try it, and.

I would have to send you the one that goes above glasses, right because you wear your glasses like at night and stuff.

Okay, I'll send you a pair.

Wait, but so, like blue light, is this a more recent phenomenon or even in like old analog TVs, are we still getting that, say blue light emitted.

The new TVs, like the hd LED super Efficient that has way more blue light than you know, the nineteen eighties analog TVs.

So they are bombarding us with a lot more blue light.

I do wonder about, Well, this is another topic.

But like you know, starting in the nineteen nineties, childhood obesity rates like started to really skyrocket, and you know, the whole controversy.

It wasn't a controversy, but people were like, oh, it's process foods.

It's like hyghper discorn syrup.

But the thing is hyper discorn syrup has been around since the sixties.

Computers started to come out in the nineties, and then the screens became more and more efficient.

So I do wonder if it was actually the light stuff that is leading to the childhood obesity epidemic.

But the bottom line is extra light at night causes circadian disruption.

Circadian disruption causes diabetes.

And the thing is at night, it's supposed to be dark, like we're supposed to be.

You know, back when we were hunter gatherers living in the bush, the only darkness was the sky and maybe the moon if it was a full moon, we would have that light.

Now, because of modern technology, we have city lights and computers and we're falling asleep on our phones and all this stuff, and so obviously it's it's going to affect our biology.

Wait, so how does like the circadian rhythms being interrupted lead to diabetes.

So when we sleep at night, that is the only time that our cortisol level, which is our stress hormone, it drops.

That's when it goes as low as possible.

When we don't sleep, whether we're being exposed to light or sleep apny or whatever, our cortisol never has a chance to fall down.

It stays high, and then cortisol triggers other hormones and inflammatory markers to get stay high as well, Like cordis secondarily triggers insulin, so our insulin stays high, and then that's what causes glucose problems and waking and all sorts of health issues.

You need to sleep at night in order for your hormones to stay balanced, and we're struggling with that as a society for sure.

Yeah, this seems like an epidemic.

And I know that word's overused, but like, literally, I feel like this is everybody.

Yeah, I'm almost wondering if the right word would be endemic basically, So endemic means that it's now a part of our life, and epidemic means that there's like an outside factor that's coming in and enough people have been affected.

Right, But when something's endemic, meaning it's just part of our lives now, like it's not going away, which really is I mean it comes down to this question of like what is this technology doing?

Is it making us healthier?

Is it making our lives easier?

Or is it actually harming us?

I mean, what's the solution that I mean some of its lifestyle change.

I think we can create safer technology.

Like there's a computer out there it's made by a company called Daylight Daylight Computer, and it's a tablet that doesn't use high levels of blue light, and it's a much safer it's trying to actually mimic sunlight, which is a much different balance of blue light infrared UV light, so it's much safer for our eyes and our body.

Like we we should invest in more technology like that, Like we should look into this, Like I think we can create better technology for us.

I think cities should start looking at city planning in a different way to say, do we need to have so many lights all over the city.

Can we create light bulbs that aren't disrupting not just our circadian rhythm, but the circadian rhythm of birds and migratory patterns.

We're going to take a short break, stay with us.

Is it fair to say this is the sleepiest generation?

Sleepy meaning like like we.

Saw no sleepy, meaning that like none of us are getting the sleep that we need properly.

Because that's so Katie, just as a result of whether it's sleep apnea, whether it's because of light whatever, Like we are interesting because I'm wondering just because this blue light thing, I mean, it's going to be the worst that during this era without a doubt.

Unless we actually decide like, hey, this is affecting our health, like enough is enough.

I don't know if we're the sleepiest generation, but I certainly think we are the most disconnected from nature, and we're so isolated.

I think loneliness.

There's so much loneliness.

I mean, this is why these chatgypt things are taking off.

And I'm sure it gets even scarier when we're talking about the impact this has on kids.

Yeah.

Oh, I mean as as a father, like it's it scares the hell out of me because I already see how much screen time like I have, which is way too much, and I try to regulate my kids scream time.

But it's still like, especially thinking about this artificial light discussion that we are having in addition to the psychosis, Like before this episode, I was already afraid enough for my child, and now I'm terrified.

It's like this is like, oh no, I didn't think about this.

This is an added thing.

But the thing is if we talk about this stuff and we can then come up with solutions.

Right, No, no, you're right, But it's still I think as a parent, I'm going to find something to be terrified about.

Yeah, So this is this has just added to the very long list.

I mean, this is a lot like what this technology is.

It's coming, it's happening so fast, and we're not even we're not not even at the tip yet of the impact this is having on children growing up in this world, right because at least you and me we remember a time before all this technology.

But it's even harder for the kids.

I mean, we already kind of hinted at this when we talked about the impact AI chapbots are having with children with like young people who are looking for friendship or are seeking friendship.

There's new research that says that you should not give a smartphone to your children under thirteen because early smartphone use is associated with suicidal thoughts, worse emotional regulation, lower self worth, and detachment from reality.

As a father, this is terrifying already.

I remember, like my self esteem was like hanging on a thread, you know, in junior high.

And I can't even imagine now having that outside influence of smartphones, social media, all of the things exacerbating what is already a very difficult period of development and adolescence.

And I think the smartphone used I mean, they didn't actually test for what exactly about the smartphones is causing this kind of behavior and dysregulation.

But they made a strong connection to social media, and they said it's likely because kids before the age of thirteen are accessing social media and had more sleep disruption, cyberbullying, and negative family relationships.

So even though it doesn't make the direct we don't actually know for sure what it is, it's fair to assume that social media is a part of it.

And it scares the hell out of me because, like, you know, my kid uses my phone and his mom's phone like a fair bid.

He goes to like PBS Kids Games, he goes to something called ABC Mouse and he does educational games there, and I feel like that's okay, And we limit the amount of time has on it, and I feel like, okay, he's he's get he's educating himself.

Like my kid, like he spends a lot of his time just going on Google Maps, following train lines.

He's obsessed.

He's four, but he's obsessed with like New York City subways and knowing all the stops.

Wow.

And he can he can read, which is wild because he started reading when he was three, so he like, yeah, so he's like obsessed with knowing all the trade stops on all the lines, and so I'd like to think that is different than social media use.

But this has got me a little frightened because I'm not really sure, because it's still like when you're on your phone, you're when you're on the phone, you're really or any screen really, you're disconnecting yourself from reality.

I know, so even more than a book or anything else, Like you're you're literally you're in another world.

And that's what scares the hell out of me.

There was a meme going around the internet that was like what was the quote?

It was like, we use the internet to escape reality, but now we're using reality to escape the Internet.

Yeah.

God, that's so.

I think about the number of people who like are actively trying to create group activities and different ways to meet with people.

It's to escape ourselves and to escape escape the Internet and this world we've created.

It's weird because our inner world is now external in terms of it's connected to the Internet.

It's not just within ourselves.

It's like totally connected to this other thing.

And for some people, like with the CHATGBT psychosis, the lines get blurred, which is really scary.

What I liked about the article that you're talking about.

I went to the original publication from the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, and what I liked about is that the article actually gives some solutions for what we should be doing in reference to your son, like using your phone.

The article talked about that we should make kids friendly phones, like phones where you can call and text people, but there's no access to social media, so it's like a kid phone, and maybe there's access to like, you know, the safe materials.

The other cool idea which I liked was that there should be mandatory education, kind of like doing drivers said before driving.

There should be mandatory education before giving someone access to a smartphone.

But what would you teach a kid about using the smartphone?

That's the other thing.

I don't know.

I just remember doing driver's head, just like, oh my god, I have to give all these people the right of way, like I could kill someone in this thing, Like I have to be so careful.

I mean the you know, there was a lot of discussion in the article about the idea of parents, because the issue is like if you don't let your kid have access to a smartphone, like I've always said that I would give my kid a Nokia brick remember those old little Nokia brick phones.

Is the flip the flip phone, No.

Not the flip that's the flip phone is a step up.

This is the little brick phone that it almost looks like a phone.

It looks like a children's toy.

Yeah, exactly, it looks like it.

It looks like it was made by Fisher Price, right, yeah, or play school.

But like that to me, is like the most basic kind of phone where it takes forever detect you can get phone calls on it.

If you want to play a game.

I don't know what you can play.

I think it's a snake game.

Right, Oh you're right, yes.

Yes, but like it?

To me, that seems like that should be it for quite some time.

And one of the since even if you prevent your child from using a smartphone, you have to deal with all their friends using smartphones.

Yeah.

Then so then the issue becomes about really working together as a community with other parents and saying together, we're not going to allow you to have a smartphone until you're sixteen years old, or until you're fourteen years old, or when I would say, until college, right, because I feel like, especially like, oh, when you're sixteen, when you're in your junior year of high school and your grades matter the most, that's when I want to give you a smartphone.

Like seems like a bad idea, but like, you.

Know what this article talks about, like this government ban on social media for people less than age thirteen.

Which they're doing in other countries, right, they're doing.

It in other countries.

I mean, you know, I think it's a fabulous idea.

Kids do not need Instagram and Facebook and all the other garbage that young and now there's data to show that actually might kill them.

The other thing that which I totally agree with, the article said that we need to hold the tech companies accountable for this, like they need to do a better job of doing age verification, like actually making sure that these are not kids on this, And I totally agree.

If we do not hold these companies accountable, then there profits will rain, like it doesn't matter, you know, So I I completely agree, Like we need to handle this on a much bigger societal level.

When I was a kid, I remember home being freedom, like freedom from like school, from school, from all the stuff that came with school, like whether it was bullying, whether it was like the social pressures and all the stupid dynamics that every school has, especially in high school.

And sure I brought it with me to a degree because you had able insta messenger, but also keep in mind that it was so minimal in terms of like there was It was like a few blinking lights and the messages.

And also it was imposed, like you couldn't stay on that long because back then you had to use your phone line and then.

Your dad had to be like, hey, I got to use the.

Phone phone right, or that somebody would pick up the phone and it would disconnect it.

Back then, it's like there was all there were restrictions based on the limits of technology, so that would prevent you from using it way too long.

And now we don't have that.

It feels like kids go home and with social media, they're still in the same hell there in high school.

Like what they don't realize or they don't see this is your escape, This is your freedom from like from all that.

Like you when you're home, like you can choose who you want to spend time with and who you want to talk to, but you don't need the whole world and all of it to be raining down on you like it is in school.

It goes down to this theory.

It's like there are no more boundaries anymore.

Everything has become blurred.

And I think there's going to be a time where going to spaces in nature that have no access to Wi Fi or any kind of technology are going to be viewed as these like luxury experiences that are really hard to come by.

But the thing is Harry, like, we don't we can do something about this.

Like I hope people listening to this if you're a parent, and like you're going to think twice now about maybe giving your kids access to phones, or you're gonna just be a little bit more mindful about their use of chat GPT.

We can't change what we don't see.

And what's going on is that this technology it's slipping and coming up behind us so quickly that it's people don't even realize things are in danger until it's too late.

So the more we talk about this, the more we can do something about it.

I mean, CHATCHPT should be off limits for kids, and I know that seems extreme, but I don't see the benefit of it either.

You're using it to cheat on your essays or whatever, or you're like in the extreme case, treating it like a friend, like this is not this technology is too dangerous and your mind even Hell, we should ban smartphone and chat GBT used till you're twenty six.

I mean when do our brain stop developing twenty five?

Like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Well it depends on gender, and I don't know the facts, like off the top of my head, I have to look it up, but it's definitely later.

It's definitely past eighteen.

So I think if we did like a warning label like warning, this is not a real human, do not use if you were under eighteen.

I mean think about it.

Casinos right, Like you go to a casino, they're bright, flashing lights.

They look like toys, like a six year old would want to play slots.

But we have clear things that say twenty one and over adults.

This is not for kids.

We need to do the same thing now for chat EBT.

It's like when tobacco came out, and initially tobacco wasn't realized to be this harmful thing.

Where this is that this is like the tobacco of our generation, except it's all happening so fast, faster than we can even realize.

So we got to be very very careful, which is why I'm glad we're doing this episode.

I mean, the thing about warning labels on cigarettes is the you're gonna smoke, You're going to smoke.

But the bigger issue is that, like it's a public awareness and a reinforcement that this is not good for you.

If you're gonna do it, you're gonna do it.

But I think that overall, like you have children growing up seeing these packets of cigarettes that have like will cause lung cancer written on them, Like I think that's going to be a something that that'll discourage you.

And in some countries actually they show cancerous lungs.

They show like photos of the lung cancer and then they'll say like this is lung cancer.

And it's like a very effective programming.

Yes, you know, I've seen I think in the UK, don't they have that?

Yeah, in other countries.

And I mean, if we could do something like this, this will mimic intimacy, But I don't know what kind of image would show like.

Intimacy, what is most relationships?

Like I guess we need to teach our kids more about that Greek myth of narcissists who looked at the image of himself in a pool of water and then eventually died because he couldn't stop looking at himself.

If we teach them that and we put a picture of that, but that I doubt that would make a big difference, But it's a start.

Well, we need to come up with more ideas.

Basically, I'm just dreading the conversations, like, Dad, I need a smartphone so I can dance like an idiot in front of it and post it on a thing.

Right then, won't you just let me dance like a Dumbo in front of this thing so I can post it.

You're just like dance for me on.

Oh well, I'm so glad that we could talk about this.

Well, I learned a lot today, Prianca, what'd you learn?

I learned that smartphone usage will lead to psychosis, could potentially lead to diabetes, and is harming the future of this world.

And at the same time, the whole time we've been doing this podcast, I've thought about my phone.

Oh okay, what's going to be on it?

When I look at it again?

I'm pretty excited.

I'll probably be asking you for your address because I'm going to mail you some blue light blocking glasses.

I think it's good.

I think the other thing I learned is that I think there is a future here where we can live safely with these types of things.

But it's going to require creators of this technology to be held accountable, and it's going to require us as a society to start putting in some very strict boundaries.

Agreed, Thanks for listening everyone.

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