stock trades in sales. watch this health administration committee tonight starting at 9:00 eastern on c-span online at c-span.org or watch full coverage on our free video app c-span now. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including medco. ♪ >> midcoast by the professor of ethical leadership at new york university's school of business. he is a contributor to the

atlantic. his newest piece is about social media. that is what we are going to get to next. welcome to washington journal. >> the piece is an extensive piece that looks at social media. the headline is intriguing. it says why the past 10 years of american life have been uniquely stupid. what prompted you to write the article? tell us what you found? guest: i'm a professor at new york university since 1995. i love the university. it just felt like something changed. something changed in the fabric of society in 2014 and weird stuff started happening on campus. students began protesting books

and ideas and speakers. many protection from ideas. i wrote an article with my friend called the coddling of the american mind. this isn't just on campus. our whole society is going insane in certain ways. you can see it on the left and right. social media was behind all this. i'm a social psychologist. by digging in and seeing what the social media do to suppress people, it gives some people voice. who loses voice? most people. when i realized that, it's empowering the far left, the far right, trolls who just love to hassle people, and russian intelligence agents.

they have really benefited from twitter and facebook. when i worked that out, i wanted to explain the social psychology behind this. what happens when there is a lot of petty intimidation. when that happens, our institutions become stupid because nobody's willing to challenge stupid statements. host: you refer to the tower of babel. why did you hone in on that we've all been wondering what the hell is going on for the last 5-7 years. what is happening to us. it's a short little story.

the key line is when god sees humanity building this giant tower up to the heavens, god says let us go down and confound their language so that they may not be able to understand one another. i realized, that's what has happened to us. social media it was supposed to connect us. it's actually fragmented everything. it shattered everything. people can speak to a small fragment almost as though we were looking in a mirror into a thousand shards of glass. we are yelling at each other and there is no coherent speech. host: you start on a point of optimism. you may or memory the arab spring. i was at a moment when people were optimistic about what social media could do. guest: if you go back to 1989, i

was a child of the cold war. it seemed to me that nuclear war was in our future and all of these terrible things. suddenly, the berlin wall falls. the cold war ends. we get the internet. in the 90's, liberal democracy, that's the way to go. let china and north korea get rich and they will be liberal democracies. the internet was a great source of optimism. we get to the arab spring in 2011, we thought facebook can take down a dictator. what autocracy could defeat the internet? 2011 was the year of peak optimism. many of us thought the future is so bright i need sunglasses.

actually, it turns out that was a turning point and things got worse after that. scioscia media changed and became much more about -- less about to medication. host: the pieces in the atlantic. you can read it at atlantic.com. this is how we are going to set the lines apart for this conversation. if you are under the age of 30, (202) 748-8000. if you're between 31-60, (202) 748-8001. for those of you over 60, independents (202) 748-8002. you can send a comment by social media. we welcome your text comments as well. that is (202) 748-8003. utah touched on this at the start of the conversation. you say this is what happened to

many americans key institutions in the 2010s. they got stupider because social media fill in their members a fear of getting it darted, the shift was pronounced at universities, creative industries, political organizations at every level. it established new behavioral norms backed by policies seemingly overnight. the enhanced morality social media met a single word uttered by a professor or journalist, even spoken with positive intent could lead to a social media firestorm triggering a dismissal or drawnout investigation. do you think the monitoring of these social media sites, facebook or twitter, makes that any better? guest: no.

all of the reform of social media seems to be about content moderation. should we have more of it? should we have less of it because the right thinks the left is mostly progressive. i don't think that's relevant at all. that's not where the action is. the problem we are talking about is anyone can attack anyone and it's typically a single word, some used this word. no amount of content moderation can stop that. i can get somebody. content moderation is not that important. it's all about the dynamic of the platform. people have always said it crazy

conspiracy things. in america, we don't say you can't say that. what's chained is the crazy nasty stuff gets amplified to millions of people easily. you have people competing to get their stuff amplified. the problem is the dynamics. it wasn't always like this. in the early days, they were nice places mostly. people would mostly get a good response. host: i had someone ask me, it was somebody i know very well, can i put this on social media? i immediately said no. this was something in the past, 10 years ago. do you mind if i broadcast this information? you do right about that.

gradually, social media users have become more comfortable sharing intimate details of their lives with strangers and corporations. they put on a performances and manage their personal brand. activities that might impress others that don't deepen friendships. guest: this is especially important to understand what's happened to young people. there's an epidemic of loneliness among young people. this is happening all over the world. young people are more lonely at school. the more people connect on social media, the lonelier they are. without social media, you call people on the phone or you communicate directly. when they all got on social media platforms, instagram is the worst because it's all about photographs, you are not communicating.

it's not authentic communication like talking to a friend. you're putting stuff out there to impress people. everyone else has to spend hours of the day commenting. the more society has moved on to social media platforms, the less connected we feel, the lonelier we are and the more anxious and suicidal young people are. host: we've got a couple of calls on the under 30 line. managing personal brand, when i think about managing a brand, i think of a corporation or somebody who is an athlete or a musician. you are talking about all of us. guest: i'm a social psychologist. i study how people are in society. even as a teenager, you care what others think about you.

learning to manage your appearance and your reputation is a normal skill. kids have learned that for thousands of years. nothing really bad happens to you. when they all moved onto instagram, now any mistake can ruin your life and bring you shame. you could become internationally famous for something you said. turning kids into brand managers full-time about what people think of them is a sick way to raise kids. kids are depressed. host: let's go to nelson in new york. you are on with jonathan haidt. host: -- caller: thank you c-span. i want to thank -- keep things quick. putin has called western cancel

culture. do you think that applies? really, my main comment that i just want you to recap the categories you mention. i think those dynamics accentuates. that's the most important aspect to understanding your article. caller: goodbye. guest: thank you briefly, the four categories of people who become super empowered by hyper viral social media are the far left and the far right, they are engaged in a culture wars all the time. the trolls. there are a certain number of men who get prestige, they feel good when they get to harass people and insult them.

they usually use fake names. the fourth group is russian intelligence, who have tried to mess with our democracy. they don't have to send agents. they can make us fight over race and gender from st. petersburg. why would we want to empower these groups? this is what is messing us up. vladimir putin, he complains about american cancel culture. it's a real problem. this is what's messing us up. any people on the right were drawn to vladimir putin and supporting him even when he was clearly an enemy of the u.s.. many people were drawn to him. our culture war is so intense that anyone who is against the far left is a friend of mine for some people. i'm relieved to see republicans and conservatives have generally

come out against vladimir putin in support of ukraine. our culture war is so far gone that wasn't a foregone conclusion. host: we will hear from austin next, calling from north carolina. caller: hello. i'm a big fan of your work. i had a question about one of the prescriptions you give toward the end of the article. in regards to reforming social media, people try and do that through different ways. whether it's billionaires taking over or regulations. each come with their own problems. i'm curious about what you think would be the best way to reform social media. guest: the first thing is, stop talking about content moderation. that's an impossible

conversation to win. content moderation doesn't catch very much. it's only in english. don't even think we are talking about who gets to decide what goes online. think about the architecture of the platform. these platforms come in, they become hyper viral eyes in 2009. that's what becomes possible for any idiot to post something inflammatory and false. the problem is the architecture. had we change the architecture? there are two problems. this is incredibly toxic for children and teenagers. the congress is not able to do much. in the u.k., there parliament passed an age-appropriate design code. you can't be pinging them at

midnight to say someone mentioned you. there are ways to make the architecture less toxic for teenagers. california is voting tomorrow in their legislature whether to adopt those u.k. rules. on the kids front, there are great ideas and the possibility for reform. on the democracy side, it's harder. there are reforms that we -- would mean the extreme 1% on each side don't get magnified 1000 times. we would be a lot better off if there was only 100 times more voice. host: let's go to connecticut. go ahead. caller: good morning. i really appreciate your time. i kind of think social media is a reflection of what you were looking for. i've had a positive experiences on social media, learning from

people like yourself, medical information. that's how i choose to use it. with the division and the polarization in our political, we don't remember september 11. it happens to us all. i think we are forgetting all the good things we can use it for. the bat is amplified. if we made a conscious effort, people like yourself can amplify and magnify the good news and the informative news at the adult level. it would trickle down to our children. we have a lot to do with what our children here, choose to listen to. i think we underestimate our influence.

we are pawning off too much responsibility on social media. i would like your thoughts. thanks and have a great day. guest: those are very sensible objections. a lot of good stuff happens on social media. most of the interactions among friends are positive. there are many pluses and minuses. there is an important rule in psychology that bad is stronger than good. in a marriage, if you say five nice things to your spouse and five bad things, you will be divorced pretty soon. the ratio is 5-1. say five nice things for every bad thing. that's the tipping point. even if there is a lot of good stuff, the bad stuff is so damaging. the country could fall apart around us.

you point out about children. parents have lamented how hard it is to influence children. a lot of research shows children are influenced by the total environment. they are not looking to their parents for how to be. no child has the accent of their parents. they are totally programmed to soak up the norms around them. that was true before social media. you bring in social media, it's as if there is a funnel hooked up to each kids eyeballs and another going into their ears. it is so full of more junk than was ever possible before social media. there is no room for anything else. when your kid is on instagram, composing photos, when your kid is spending 10 hours a day in

this performance for other peers, there's no room for anything. i don't think parents have a 10th as much influence on their kids as they did 10 or 15 years ago. i don't think we -- we have some agency. small architectural features about the platforms are probably 100 times more powerful. host: instagram is now owned by facebook? have they responded to parental or other pressure to change the architecture and make it less addictive? guest: not really. i know they are concerned. i've spoken with the heads of

instagram and mark zuckerberg. they have tried. they do research on it. they're very small reforms, like hiding the like count. they are aware of it. i think they would like to make reforms if they didn't cut market share. they are in a struggle. the kids are moving to tiktok. it's funnier. facebook is desperate to retain them. they will not do basic things like require. when my kids entered sixth-grade, they said everyone is on instagram. they are all 11 years old. i've asked them, will you doing to police that? that's not true. you don't do anything.

host: jonathan haidt is our guest. you can read the article at the atlantic. we welcome your calls and comments. (202) 748-8000 for those of you under the age of 30. (202) 748-8001 for those who between 31 and 60. those over 60, independents (202) 748-8002. joe is up next. caller: can you hear me? hello. thank you so much for being here. thank you c-span. please keep up your work. my brother and i argue about how the internet has destroyed society in a lot of ways. young people have their faces in

the phone all day long. they don't know what the world is about. it's all electronic devices. we keep selling new devices to our children. what about the violent video games a lot of children listen to? look what coronavirus has done to our society. we can't even get together and have family gatherings. we don't enjoy nature. we don't enjoy the little things that are part of life. thank you for being there. i was trying to think of one other subject. if i would write a book, education is life itself. we keep learning things from the day we are born until the time we die. please keep up your work. guest: thank you so much.

you are right that education should be throughout life. kids are focused on learning the things they need that are age-appropriate that will get them adult skills. children play, chasing games, running games, pretend games. that's the normal course of development that prepares them for conflict. they must have conflicts and learn how to resolve them. what happened around 2012, they all got phones. they all got on social media. it's as though we said you once played it, you're going to have this phone. you're going to spend all of your life on it. you're not going to talk to people anymore. it's going to block out l other experiences.

you can have rice to eat, nothing else. you get all kinds of diseases. we put kids on experience blockers and we are surprised they come out depressed and anxious. i agree with your concerns. it's not the internet per. the internet is amazing. the internet brings knowledge and education to the world. it's not the phone necessarily. that's more complicated. the programs that run on the phone, it's the social media that uses a business model where the user is not the customer, the user is the product. facebook, twitter, instagram, tiktok, it's not the entire internet. it's a small number of platforms.

that is what is sucking up our attention. that's what we need to come together to oppose. this is not a partisan issue. this is the loss of people born after 1996. their mental health is so bad. they have problems with basic coping. we've got to stop this. host: sean is calling from kansas city on the line from 31-60. good morning. caller: thank you for having me. i've got a question for you. i have gotten on social media. i have tried to talk to people. you can't get through to these people, no matter what you say. look up the things that you are listening to and hearing and reading, ask where they came from. see if you can find it on there.

guest: are you saying this in a private chat? are you saying this in response to a comment? caller: two a response that other people can see. guest: that's the problem. most people are reasonable if you talk to them in private. if they are on a platform, another word for stage, if you come to them and say i think you are wrong, there is no way they are going to do anything other than fight back. if you want to influence people, don't be on these platforms. talk to people privately. that's what is so horrible about these platforms. they have basically plopped -- blocked normal human interaction.

there's no way you can have a conversation like that. host: our line for those of you under 30 is (202) 748-8000. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for having me on. i was lucky enough to catch a talk of yours during my undergraduate education. it was a great talk. my question is, do you think these corporations will implement reforms? how might we incentivize them to make these reforms? guest: i do have faith they will not lament reforms. the reforms that are needed are

ones that would make them less viral, less addictive, it would cut the number of users. they are not going to do it on their own. we have to apply pressure from multiple sources. i understand the importance of free-market sector. i understand regulation is kind of stupid itself and often backfires. ideally, we would have competition. a friend of mine showed me his 24-year-old son is on the platform be real, they are only allowed to put one photo a day. that is better than instagram. if anyone is listening, if we could get kids to move to be real and stop using instagram, we would be much better off. that would put pressure on instagram and facebook to reform.

ideally, market pressure would solve this. that would have a huge impact and be beneficial. these networks have a norma's structural advantages. the value of the network grows with the size of the network. if everyone is on twitter and somebody develops a debtor version, it's hard to get everybody to go over. we need government regulation. the united kingdom is way ahead of us. the congress is hopeless because of our culture war. states can do things. california is considering implementing this code. contact your state legislature and encourage them to take action. it's not a partisan issue. we all love our kids. the who aside rate -- suicide rate is up 100%. we have to apply pressure.

host: you had an adamant conversation the problem is not with content moderation. i'm interested in your response to the news lately that elon musk is looking to buy twitter. the washington post with an op-ed, the world's richest man made an offer to purchase twitter. let's hope he doesn't succeed. a lot of arguments say this would be the end of content moderation on twitter. guest: i think there's some truth to that. i'm a big fan of free speech. i'm a professor. i cofounded an academy which argues for viewpoint diversity at universities. free speech or viewpoint diversity works its magic only when you are within an institution that encourages listening. these platforms, the rules of twitter are thou shalt never

talk about anything in context. you must take everything out of context so people can get angry about it. the platforms are really bad for free speech. they are just about yelling and screaming. i do think it's important to kick people off when they make threats. if elon musk were to take over, i would imagine that would decline. child pornography, selling drugs and guns. a lot of things should not be on these platforms. i suppose if elon musk were to buy twitter, i don't know what he would do. there would probably be less of it than there is today. i don't think twitter promotes the benefits. i think it is undercutting the role democracy.

we are in a global contest against autocracy. they are making it harder for democracy to be successful. china is being a better autocracy. if we care about liberal democracy and the american way, we've got to get our house in order. we have to do something about twitter. it's not that we need more content moderation necessarily. it's the architecture. it's all about the architecture. host: let's hear from frank in bayside. caller: thanks for taking my call. i would just like to make a comment and get your response. i think a way to fix this is to actually charge per host or per like. for commercial people or people

in the political frame of things, i think the charge should be double. in the old days, you had phone calls. you were unlimited in your home, when you worked for a business, they charged. you were incentivized to do less. also, i think there should be a charge for emails. that's why you get so many spam emails and misleading emails that are totally out there. it's free. host: the idea of charging and making it cost to post. guest: if there was one regulated platform like the phone company used to be, the

government could say we are going to change the way this one platform works. we don't live in such a country. we live in a free market society where people are free to start companies and use different business models. it's hard to say you can't use a business model. people would leave facebook if they started charging. many people have talked about how companies are better toward their customers. right now, the customers are the advertisers. one hopes that people are trying to make platforms and give that value to us. it might the appropriate to charge something. if you hate what's going on on social media. i think you're right to focus on incentives.

we get very different behavior. there is a limited role for the government to say you have to charge per post. i don't think competition would allow that. host: wasn't there security concerns about tiktok when it was first made available in the u.s.? guest: i don't know much about that. we know that lots of countries are spying on other countries. the chinese are quite avid at it. we are is well. i don't know much about this. it seems to me that the chinese commonest party is using every tool to win the global battle against liberal democracy. i'm at least concerned about tiktok being a chinese owned company. i don't know what security they have in place. host: let's go to virginia. go ahead. caller: this is a really

interesting conversation. being kind of on the older -- younger end of the millennial side, it has impacted people that i have in my circle. we grew up as cell phone started becoming popular. i think it's interesting to compare my specific experience with people who are younger than me. guest: what your were you born? caller: 1991. it's really interesting to compare experiences. i generally think my interactions with social media are somewhat healthy. there are degrees i spend too much time looking for things like instagram. i have an acute sense that things like instagram, facebook

are damaging. i think it creates a lot of the echo chambers where people can listen to only things that support what they believe and exacerbate the problems that already exist. it's interesting. i don't know what the solution is. our -- are youth and other countries experiencing the same problems? is that kind of universal? are there any good successful solutions? guest: that's a great question. if you were born in 1991, you were 20 in 2011, that's the divide. that's when social life changed in america. kids mostly worn on social media every day.

by 2012, they mostly work. you were through with adolescents. your brain was mostly develops. your generation did not suddenly get pressed and suicidal. if you have younger siblings, that sibling was 14 when all the kids moved onto social media all the time. that seems to be what caused the divide between gen z and the millennials. if you got social media while you were through. it, that messed up your brain it, especially for girls. imagine if you had to post yourself online every day and wait for people to rate you or comment you or comment on your body. that gets intense around 2012.

i think these platforms, all of us adults find we are addicted. it doesn't mess up our brain. going through puberty, there is no way to make that safe. that is unsafe. we've got to change the rules. that was a foolish age. kids are not adults and 13. we have to raise the age to 16 or 18. if anyone listening to me, if you have kids, do not let them on these platforms until at least high school. your mileage may vary. the kids will say they will be excluded and that may be painful. i'm not saying definitely get them off. talk with them. especially if you can get a group of parents and a group of kids to say this is so stupid. this is clearly messiness up. if you get a group to go off or

talk to her principal, this is a social dilemma where everyone is trapped. if you can group to go off, everyone is better off. that would be the best solution. host: as a professor and seeing incoming freshmen, how have they changed in the 12 years based on their use of social media. guest: i teach at a business school. i've only taught mba students who have all been millennials. what i hear from my fellow teachers who are teaching undergrads, all of a sudden beginning in the late 2010s, students would break down if you criticize them. they would take offense at a single word. most of them don't want to prosecute anyone. some of them are so fragile. we have to teach the most fragile student in the room. that means we can't be

provocative. everyone is worse off. host: that is largely due to social media? guest: putting them on spirits blockers when they're are young. need to let kids out and play. go to let grow.org, it helps promote the idyllic kid should be outside playing without supervision. it wasn't until the 90's. host: our guest jonathan haidt is the author of the peace in the atlantic, why the past 10 years have been uniquely stupid. thank >> there is a common thing that corrupt people do corrupt things. we should make sure that they don't have an opportunity to do that. our goal is also to make sure that those who want to follow the law and transparency measures have the ability to do so, without being labeled corrupt.

that is our charge. our charge is to develop something that makes the public comfortable. that we as members of congress are transparent in what we do financially, but at the same time, we are working through a prism of testimony that was based upon corrupt individuals. announcer: a number of policy experts testify before congress on proposals to hold congressional lawmakers accountable for their stock trades and sales. watch this house administration committee hearing tonight starting at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org, or you can watch full coverage on our video app, c-span now. announcer: now available on the c-span shop, the congressional directory. this compact spiral-bound book as your guide to the federal government, with contact information for every member o