Pivot - AI Therapy, “Mankeeping,” and Screen Addiction

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

Scott-Free August continues with #1 New York Times bestselling author and award-winning podcast host, Mel Robbins! Kara and Mel talk about why “The Let Them Theory” took off, the pros and cons of using AI for therapy, why people should stop blaming their phones, and the deeper issues behind "mankeeping." Listen to The Mel Robbins Podcast here. Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠. Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠. Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at ⁠⁠nymag.com/pivot⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Investing involves risk, including loss of principle. Securities trading is offered through an account with Robin Hood Financial LLC, member CIPIC, a registered broker dealer. I think often listening to you guys, Scott is having an emotional or social conversation, and you're trying to have a practical one. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Welcome back to Scott Brie August. As Scott continues his August adventures, I'm joined by another incredible co-host, Mel Robbins. Mel is an award-winning podcast host, a New York Times best-selling author, and an expert in mindset, behavioral change, and life improvement. Welcome, Mel. Well, thank you for having me. I am so thrilled to have you.

We couldn't be more opposite, which is why I want you here so much. Wait a minute. What do you mean we couldn't be more opposite? We were just talking about vibrating all the time. I'm a constant vibrator. Okay. Well, hold on. Somebody's going to take that out.

Of course, that's my hope. That's my great hope, social media-wise. But talk a little bit about what you're doing. Because you, earlier today, someone from CNN was here who you work for CNN. So before I got into doing what I am doing, I had. a really cool opportunity to be one of the legal analysts and commentators for CNN. Right. And I did that for almost three and a half years.

Right. And it was an incredible lawyer. Yeah. Well, I was a public defender here in Manhattan early days of my career and had about 19 different job changes. You know, I'm kind of one of these people that I learn everything I talk about the hard way. And I ended up at CNN. It was an incredible, incredible job, very intellectually stimulating. It was a real honor to have the opportunity to try to take these massive, in particular, social justice cases and be able to talk about them in a three to six minute segment and try to distill down some of the biggest themes and the important takeaways.

And so that's what I did years and years ago. I left CNN in about 2014, I think it was. And the rest is history because you become one of the most successful podcasters around. are number one, too, often at the very top. What do you attribute that to? Because this is a shift, public defender, CNN legal in us to this. Well, when I got involved in podcasting, I had been wanting to do something that was a longer-form conversation. I had been, after CNN, what ended up happening is I had created this motivational hack called the five-second rule, not the one where you drop food on the floor.

Right. Get it up in five seconds. Which I do all. Yeah, blow the dog hair off, we're good to go. This is this concept that there's a big difference between thinking and doing, and there's this five-second window of hesitation that defines your whole life. The moment you stop and consider how you feel about doing something, within five seconds if you don't do it, your kind of automatic thinking loops will take over. So, for example, when the alarm goes off in the morning, you know that you're supposed to get out. You're the one

who set the alarm, and yet instead of just rolling out of bed, what do we do? We stop and we think, how do I feel about getting out of bed? And if you're stressed or anxious or depressed, which I was when I created this little hack, if you stop and think, it's cold, it's dark, I don't feel like my life's a nightmare. I hate my spouse, like, I'm just going to go back to sleep. You will go back to sleep. If you move within five seconds, everything changes. See, there's this huge mistake that people make.

I made this forever, thinking that at some point I'll feel like doing what I need to do. Right. And the fact is motivation is complete garbage. You will never feel like doing the things that you need to do. You need to develop this skill, everybody does, to force yourself to take action before you feel ready. I see. And so the five-second rule is a simple concept. You just count backwards the moment you feel hesitation kick in, five, four, three, two, one, and then you move.

And you can use this to shortcut this default that a lot of us have, which is a bias toward overthinking, the smallest things that we need to do. True. I, of course, completely went back to sleep this morning after the alarm went off. And I'm like, who set that alarm? Who did that last night in my empty hotel room? It's such a shift in what you're doing. And we're going to talk a lot of things today, including opening eye, trying to create what they call healthy use of chat GPT. Okay. Okay, sure. And you're going to share some advice on news fatigue. But before, let's talk about your latest book, The Let Them Theory, because you are a podcaster, this book is in Norma says, Let Them is everywhere. Yes. You know, and the reason, I'm joking with you in a text, I said, I'm a don't let them kind of gal, which is kind of interesting. But this book is running up the charts. Oprah called it a game changer and a life changer. That lovely hug. by the way, at whatever greenhouse she's doing her podcast in. People are getting Let Them Tattoos. I do not. I have chaos, chaos, and entropy and centropy on my tattoos, which is very different, that everything is on its way to destruction or creation.

Talk about, for everyone hasn't heard it, tell them what the Let Them theory is all about. Sure. And how you came up with them. Sure. So the Let Them Theory is a very simple concept, two simple words. That's how you begin. Let them will help you live your life completely differently. It is a philosophy that's all about control and power. What is in your control? What is not in your control? And the fact is that most of us spend way too much of our time and energy burning through things that are beyond your control. And the number one thing that is outside of your control at all times is other people, what they think, what they do, what they say, how they feel, what they believe. And I never realized the extent to which, I was living my life navigating my day-to-day decisions based on other people's moods, their expectations, trying to get them to things.

Everybody does. Everybody does because we have a fundamental need to feel in control. It's a survival mechanism. That's not going away. But we make a mistake of thinking that the way to feel safer or more in control in your own life is to micromanage change and control other people. So if you were doing something that worried me or frustrated me or made me feel nervous about something or hurt. Instead of crossing the line and trying to force you to change,

which is what I did forever with my kids, with my husband, with the world around me, with my boss, there's a simpler way to live your life. Just say let them. Let them think what they're going to think. Let them do what they're going to do. Let them be who they're going to be. Let them feel what they're going to feel because I know that I can't control another human being. And then you go to step two of the theory, which is you say, let me. Let me is where you take your power back. And instead of giving it to other people and outside forces, which only is going to stress you out, by the way, let me remind myself, at any moment, there's only three things I can control. I can control what I think. I can control what I do or don't do. And I can control how I respond to the feelings that are going to automatically rise up. That's all you've got. And one of the reasons why this is spread around the world, and it's more than— It really has. Oh, no, it's six million copies in six and a half months. It's the single, most of the single, successful nonfiction book launch in history. The reason why it is so successful is a couple reasons. Number one, we are living in a moment of unprecedented change. The average person,

this is research from Dr. Aditi Nurakar from Harvard Medical School. She is one of the world's leading experts in stress as a medical condition. Not stress like I feel stressed, but the actual physiology of being stressed. Inflammation, cortisol. Oh, the fact that it's actually bigger than that. your, this is, again, Dr. Nurakar's research, what happens when you're, quote, stressed is that you switch gears in your brain and the amygdala takes over. That's right. And that means that your prefrontal cortex is not able to function in its full capacity, which means strategic thinking out the window, emotional regulation, out the window. And this is kind of the perfect place to start for all the topics you want to talk about today, because I think we tend to laser down onto the things that are

frustrating us or scaring us without zooming out and seeing the bigger picture. According to her research, in the United States, 80% of human beings walking around are in a chronic state of stress. Yes, they are, and which leads to health outcomes. Well, not even health. Like, it leads to the inability to think critically, the inability to regulate your emotions. Right. And so you are dealing nine times out of ten, or eight times out of ten, rather, with somebody who is not fully able to function. So basically what you're saying is the constant id. We become the id versus super ego or ego. Well, you know, those are big fancy words. And this is the other reason why the let them theory is spread around the world. It's super simple. Right. Everybody can say

the words let them. And the second you say let them, and this brings me to the third reason why this is so incredibly powerful is this is not a new idea. Right. Like, the reason why this is so successful is because I'm reminding you of what you already know to be true. If you're a fan of stoicism, the let them theory is a modern version of that tool. If you're a fan of radical acceptance or detachment theory, let them is practicing detachment. When you say, let me, you're reclaiming control over yourself. Because they have to go together. Oh, they have to go together.

So I joke about it, don't let them is kind of my theory. My whole career is built on, oh, no, no, no, no. You may not do that. Well, that's the let me part. Is it? Well, yeah, because, like, let's just take politics, for example. All this stuff that we're upset about is already happening. Right.

And so any of the that you do that only stresses you out, by the way, which only compromises your ability to stay calm, confident, focused, and strategic. Because it's not about that out there. The power in your life is your response to it. This is Victor Frankl's Man Search for Reining. Another reference to why this is so powerful. I am giving you a tool, let them and let me, to apply ancient philosophy, therapeutic modalities, the serenity prayer in a moment. Like, I've read every book on stoicism.

I never knew how to how to apply it when I was all stressed out because I was already hijacked by my amygdala. I was already emotionally reactive. So when I say let them, I drop down a boundary. Like, here's a simple way to use it. Everybody starts using it for day-to-day stress, because let's face it, people are really fucking annoying. They are. Whether it's a slow walk or close talker, like people. in traffic, the long-ass lines. Man on train yesterday, doing a deal. Yeah, you're just like, oh, my God.

But here's the thing. Why on earth would you give your two most important resources, which is your time and your energy to all these idiots walking around that are disrespectful, rude, and annoying? Don't do it. Don't do it. Your time and energy is so much more valuable. So when you say, let them, what you're doing is you're reminding yourself that whatever is, triggering you right now is not deserving of your time and energy. And then when you say, let me, you remind yourself that no matter what's going on around you, there are still simple things you can do in response to it that help you stay in control. So it's not the idea, because some people who could be critical is like, like, you don't want to let, and we're not talking about politics here, but Donald Trump's the perfect end. You don't want to let the government

change, like, take away rights from people. You don't want to let. Absolutely not. That's not what you're saying here. Absolutely not. Isn't, well, they're going to cut funds for NPR, let them. Well, here's the thing. They just did. Yes, they did.

So, like, let them is radical acceptance of what's happening instead of gaslighting yourself. Right. Okay? Right. Let me. But you're not saying let them, it's a good thing. No. I'm saying let them forces you to accept the facts that you're dealing with.

And let me is how you cue yourself. To take back power. Correct. Right. And if you allow all of the upset, and there's a lot of upsetting things going on and terrifying things that are going on in the world right now. But if you allow what's happening or has already happened to stress you out to a point where you are frozen, or you are anxious, or you are now spiraling and depression, now you have no power to respond in a way either with yourself and your own stress and mental health or within your family or within your community or within your state or within the nation. at large. Sure.

You have so much more power than you realize, but you don't understand that because like me, you have been giving it away without knowing it. So you're talking about in Let Them, you're giving away power versus not being passive, right? It's not a, the opposite of passive. Because one of the things, when you're doing the idea of Let Them, I often get in arguments with people when they're talking about Don Trump and they go into the doom circle. I was like, what are you going to do about it? Like, stop.

Like, we know, like, some people, like, can you believe Donald Trump did blank? Yes. The answer for me is always, yes. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Because he's a racist. He's homophobic. He's anti-trans.

Yes, I do believe it. Yes. And so. Like, for me, I'm just surprised anybody's surprised by it. Right, exactly. Which they constantly are. That's one of his magic, I have to say. Well, this is also classic with narcissism.

Mm-hmm. Is that when you're dealing with somebody that has a personality style that is narcissistic, the people around that person, constantly give that behavior power by trying to explain it. Instead, let them reveal who they are and stop gaslighting yourself into believing this person's ever going to change.

I actually did use. At first, I was like, I have a difficult relationship with my mom, and I used your let them because I always get pulled into something, and I have to say it's working. It's very, and then it's oddly working. I'll tell you why it's working, Kara. And here's the reason why, is because

my favorite expert on the narcissistic personality style is Dr. Romani Dversla. Okay. And Dr. Romani basically says that one of the most damaging things that we can do when we have a very challenging personality, especially with people that are close to us, because it's easy on the internet to, you know, oh, cut them out of your life. Most of us have somebody very challenging in our life, and we're not just going to cut them out of our life. We want to figure out how to deal with them, whether it's an ex, or it is a parent, or it's a child that's acting out, a boss or whatever, that one of the most dangerous things you can do is hope that the person's

going to change. Right. If you say let them, let their behavior be the truth of who this person is. You are forcing yourself to recognize who this person is, and now let me decide how much time do they get, how much energy did they get of mine. Let me stop wishing they would change and let me just actually learn how to accept who this person is and who they aren't and stop gaslighting myself with some fantasy about who they may become. You don't think people should have a role in trying to change people, though,

the idea? I think that your only role... Especially people who care about. I'm not talking about the guy on the train. I just go around it. Well, here's the thing. I'm super pragmatic. So I don't want to waste my time because I've wasted 50 years of my life doing dumb shit that didn't work and then causing myself stress and hurt and frustration and causing other people stress and hurt and frustration. Our desire to change other people typically comes from a place of love. Like, we want the best for our kids. We want the best for our families. We want to get along with everybody. That's a wonderful thing. But what I realized in doing the research for this book, because there are 57 world-renowned experts that are cited in this book, 18-page bibliography, and the let-them theory over and over,

let them and let me, helps you access the advice and the research that everybody says at what works. So let's take a look at this dynamic of wanting to change other people. You're always going to want to change other people. That's a good thing. But let's go about it and be very smart about it. Because here's the thing. We all have a fundamental need to be in control of our lives, our decisions, our timelines, what's going to happen at work. And when you start to worry about, like, for example, your kid. So I was really world, I'll use an example for my own life. Okay. I have three kids, 26, 24, and our son is 20. And our son, Oakley, is this wonderful, like, just casserole of a kid of things. You know, he had major dyslexia and ADHD and dysgraphia.

He bounced from the public school to the school for language-based learning, and he was, like, hated school and didn't have a lot of friends. And as a parent, I was so tied in knots and worried about this kid. And so he would, like a lot of kids, especially young men, I would hear him upstairs playing video games. Right. And he wasn't doing well in school at the time and kind of checked out, and I would go marching up the stairs because I'm worried about him. And I want him to be motivated and I want him to thrive. Did you march just like that? Oh, yeah, just my arms pumping and stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Yeah, that's why they were headphones because I know you're going to do it. Swing open the door. Hey, you know, you need to get off the – first of all, do I really think he's an idiot? Of course your kid knows that playing video games is not going to help the problem that he's feeling at school. Do you want to know the hardest working kid in school? It's not the kid getting A's. it's a kid that's failing. Right.

Do you know how hard it is to sit in a classroom and not be able to do what's being asked of you? And so all he thinks about is that. Right. And now I go in and march in like Miss Bossy

with all the answers telling him what to do, kind of like we do with our spouses. You know, you really should exercise. Oh, thanks a lot. You don't think I thought about taking a while like, you know, fuck you. And so what happens

is our desire to change people because we want them to thrive and we want the best for them. The second I tell you what to do, I bump up against your need to control yourself. So instead of motivating you, you know what I just did? I actually created the standoff. You're right.

No, this is my favorite person on this. There's two experts that you should talk to. He goes by Dr. Kay, the Healthy Gamer. He, Harvard-trained psychiatrist that is a specialist in gaming addiction. And now his entire business is training other therapists. And basically, the entire thing about motivation is we are working against the circuitry. Yes, absolutely, especially with some of this addictive stuff. Yes, that people only change when they're ready to change for themselves.

Sure, sure. I know, we say, sure. But then we're like, buddy, you know, how about a trainer? Right. Hey, you know, maybe you shouldn't eat that second slice of bread or maybe you shouldn't have the fourth beer. And they're like, fuck you, I'm going to have that. Right. Don't tell me what to do. Right. And so we create these standoffs instead of using the research to actually sneakily influence. them and make them think it's their idea. Well, here's what you're going to do. So another, a second expert that I love is Dr. Stuart Ablon.

He's at Mass General Brigham, Harvard Medical School professor. He also is the founder of Think Kids, so he's been a child psychologist for 30 years. His entire body of work says that let's just assume everybody in life wants to thrive. Let's assume everybody wants to be happy and healthy. When somebody is challenging or somebody is like not thriving in life, we jump in and think it's a problem of willpower. He doesn't believe that. Right. He believes it's an issue of skill and it's an issue of discouragement.

And I believe this too. I believe that the single biggest thing that stands in people's way in today's world is discouragement and lack of hope. This belief that, okay, well, that works for care, but doesn't work for me. Right. You know, that's nice for that person, but that's never going to work for me. Because you can have all the advice in the world, and we're going to get to AI and chat. You know, like the advice is there. Right.

But if you believe it's not going to work for you, you're never going to actually do it. And so the thing that you're battling in a kid that's not motivated or a person in your life that's not losing the weight or not getting the help that they need is that they actually believe deep down somewhere that it's not going to work for them. Right. And at some point, the only way that they're going to change is they're going to have to get to a point where staying where staying where they are. is actually harder than doing the very difficult work that it takes to change. I get your point. Are there any surprising use cases you've heard from others with this? You just discussed your son how you use it in your day-to-day life.

Is there a surprising case? And is there one where you should not use let them? Well, again, you need to, I don't know of a single case where you shouldn't use let them because there's always the let-me part. Like, for example, if you're in a situation where you have a friend that's wasted, and they're like, oh, and they're grabbing their keys. You're not going to just let them walk out the door. Right.

But they're already grabbing their keys. You've got to go to the let me part. Let me step in. Right. Let me take the keys. Let me do the thing that is going to prevent them from doing something destructive right now. But here's the problem. Most people don't do that in front of you.

Right. Most people that are struggling are really good at hiding it because they already feel a deep sense of shame about it. And so the approach that I think is the use case that's incredible comes from Dr. Stewart. Ablon. And it's taking the let them, which is let somebody just be where they are. Right. Let them be who they are. Let them struggle. And let me take a different approach. And that approach is with them, not at them. And so the approach is simple. You literally take the stance. I break it down into something I call the ABC loop. And the ABC loop is just a three-part conversation. The first thing you're going to do with anybody that's struggling in your life, and this is the most surprising use case,

It works like a charm, is you apologize. You apologize to the person for assuming you know what's going on and for badgering them and pressuring them. And so with, you know, instance with my son, hey, buddy, I'm really sorry. Must be completely annoying to have me constantly nagging you. I'm really sorry about that. And first of all, if it's a kid, they're like, ooh, what?

They're waiting for the kid. And by the way, the best place to have this conversation is a car. Because they're trapped. You don't have to look at each other. There's something about the forward ambulation of being in a moving vehicle. I have a lot of good discussions with my kids. Yes, yes.

And so you apologize. And then what you're going to do is you're going to ask, this is the A, open-end question. I've never even asked you. How do you feel about how school's going? How do you feel about how you're doing? And even if they're like, the experts say, it doesn't matter what they say.

Right. Because the internal friction that you're creating. It's not you telling them what you're doing. you think about how they're doing. They know how they're doing. Right. Human beings aren't idiots. Right.

They know when they're not thriving. But we don't stop and ask them how they feel about it. And so even being asked to consider, how do I feel about my health right now? How do I feel about the fact that my mother's dying? How do I feel about the fact that I might lose my job to AI? It's stirring up the friction that most of us repress. And then what do you do? That's all you've got to do.

We have C. Back off. Well, B is back off. B is back off. Yeah. Back off. You've got to back off and you've got to wait and then seize the hard part. You've got to model the change.

So is, but let me as a version of don't let them in a way. It's a different version. See, I want you to be sneaky. I don't want you to, I don't want you to try to change people because it's going to backfire. I want you to use your influence because I'll give you an example that will make a lot of sense. Let's say you and I are at work. And every single day around lunch, you close your laptop, you get up, you walk outside, you go for a walk, come back 30 minutes later, you just look happy, refreshed, sit back down, like tap, tap. Now,

meanwhile, I'm jamming the tuna sandwich down my throat and I'm working through lunch. You never once asked me to go for a walk. About a month after watching you do this, something interesting is going to happen. This is research, by the way, from Dr. Talley Sharrett. She studies a science of influence. About a month after watching you do this, all of a sudden one day, I'm going to close my laptop and go for a walk. And you want to know something weird? I'm going to think it's my idea. Right. Right. But you and the power of your example and influence is the thing that actually influenced me in changing my own behavior. Because you saw it. You saw the pattern.

And I saw you enjoying it. And I sat with the fact that every day at lunch I sit there and make a different decision and I know deep down. It's a bad decision. Correct. You still can invite someone if correct. You can. Yeah. You can. Yeah. No pressure. Right. Hey, you want to go for a walk?

And if they don't, they're like, okay, you're missing out. Don't do that. Right. Well, fuck you. I got work to do. Like, see what I'm saying? Like, and so, again, people change when they're ready to change. And people only change for themselves.

And, you know, Dr. K, who I also love, basically said the basic wiring of the human brain is we default and move towards what's easy. And we reject what feels difficult. And that's why, back to my original point, you have to develop a skill for yourself where you're not sitting around waiting for a to feel easy to do the thing, where you actually understand it's never going to feel easy. Right, right. Five, four, three, two, one, I'm going to do the thing. Right. Certain people is very easy to let them.

Other people, it's not so hard. That's the difficulty. Like, my oldest son, I do a lot of, I do a version of that, I guess. Like, how do you feel? And it sounds good. I really trust you. I often say I really trust your instinct on lots of things. You're a great mom.

Not all the time. No, let me tell you why that's important. It works on that, but other people, it doesn't. It doesn't work with my mom, I have to say. Well, because she's got a narcissistic personality style. Right. So she's going to do what she's ever going to do. Yeah.

Well, you've got to let her be who she is. Your relationship will change with her profoundly, and I'm glad it's working for you. Because it's going to help you access detachment theory and radical acceptance. Well, that's where I have to go to. You do? She's never going to change. She's never, I have to do the same thing. And she said, I'm in a war with my mother that continues forever, this quiet war that goes on and on.

Because you wish it was different. Yes. And that's what Dr. Romani Diversalists says. Wishing somebody else is different is the source of your suffering in a relationship. That's sort of Buddhism, right? It is. Well, again, the let them theory is also radical. It's also the serenity prayer.

Yeah. It is Buddhism. Right. And so. You got a lot of stuff in there. You got stoicism. You've got a lot of. Because it all traces back to the fundamental truth that there's only three things you can control in life.

Mm-hmm. It's what you think about what's happening. It's what you do or don't do in response. And with our parents or the people in our life that are very challenging, what you don't do is almost more important than what you do do. And it's what you do in response to those emotions. Like you may always, and lots of us will feel that wave of grief and disappointment because a person can't be who we want them to be and who we maybe deserve to have them be. And those feelings are extremely valid and important. Yeah, you think you can change it.

Yes, but what you do with it is what matters more because that's where your power is. And ultimately, as you start to use this, and again, you'll start to use it, let them, the moment you feel frustrated about anything, and you'll notice it's 99% of the time about other people's behavior, and you say let them, your shoulders drop because you're putting a boundary up between yourself and the world where normally you'd allow the outside world and other people to impact you. Yeah, it does make a lot of it. I'm still not going to let tech bros do it because they're, you know, you know, the word tech bro, technically broken.

But hold on. You don't have a choice. That's correct. But you have a choice of what to do about it. You're right. You're the second part. Oh, you're so tricky.

All right, Mel, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about people turning to AI for mental health advice. Support for this show comes from Upway. If you're stuck in traffic again

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Mel, we're back. Illinois just became the first state to regulate the use of AI and mental health care. The new law bans AI from acting as a standalone therapist and sets guardrails of how mental health professionals can use AI to support care. Meanwhile, OpenA. is updating chat GPT to better detect emotional distress. The company says it's GPT-40 model. fell short in recognizing signs of delusion and emotional dependency in some cases, you think. The new behavior to handle what OpenA8 calls high-stakes personal decisions is rolling out soon. Talk a little bit about this because a lot of people are relying on a ton of people. A lot of people?

Enough. Now, hold on a second. There's actually a recent report from Harvard Business that says that since 20, 24 to 2025, this is a literally it just came out a couple months ago, that the single top use case for genera of AI in 2025 is therapy and companionship. Right. And I just want everybody to sit with that right now. Millions.

Well, there's 700 million people that are using generative AI every week. Yep. The top use case, Harvard Business School Report, and this is a major change from 2024, is for... Which was usually just, I want to get... Generating ideas. Generating ideas. Right.

Strategy. So, 2024 was generated ideas, specific search. It was therapy and companionship. But now it's therapy and companionship number one. And so it is happening. And the first thing I want to say is I really want to applaud what's happening in Illinois because one of the things that is terrifying about what's happening with AI, and there's lots of wonderful things that are happening,

but let's just talk about the terrifying thing that's happening. There's zero regulation. Zero. And if we have a situation where people are turning to AI in order to get advice, it's already happening. Right. And the problem, because there is good stuff here, I brought a bunch of studies to talk about here,

and I want to zoom out and talk about, well, why is this happening? Right. The reason why people are turning toward AI is because we are, first of all, as we've already discussed, living in an unprecedented moment of change and overwhelm and insecurity. Right. Information flood versus information desert,

which existed before. And what we have is also combine that with a medical fact, Dr. Adidi Nurakar, Harvard Medical School, 80% of people in the United States are living in a state of chronic stress, meaning you're in fight or flight. Right. Constantly. Constantly. And so if you're finding, as you're listening right now, that you're constantly overthinking, you're procrastinating more, you feel a little bit more anxious, you're having trouble thinking. And you have the tools to help you do that doom scrolling or constant news. Yes. We'll talk about that in a second. Your body won't reset without you resetting your stress response. And so, you have this backdrop where you've got people in a state where they need support. And in the United States alone, for every 1,600 people that have depression or anxiety, there's only one mental health professional. And that's in the United States. There are some places in the world

where for every 300,000 people that have depression, there's one. And so there is a huge need. But let's talk of... Also, people aren't connecting with their own close people, too. They don't have that at work or wherever. Yes. And so I think it's important to just say that we need to look at the fact that people are searching for answers. And I personally believe that the fact that somebody is searching for answers is a good thing. Now, let's talk about where AI can support and where AI is very problematic. Because I think the single biggest issue that we're facing when it comes to generative AI is there's zero regulation.

And we're living in a world, especially in the United States, where we now have a government that's more focused on profit than people. we have business regulation getting gutted. In fact, you know, you've got the backdrop of Illinois passing this law, which I think it's a fabulous thing, but here's my concern. It seems like the law is focused primarily on AI products that are marketed as therapy. My concern is the average person is just going right there and doing a problem. Right, and it's also open AI is still the largest. Yes.

And now they are trying to do things like sending out reminders people to take a break when they've been chatting with the bot, But they also benefit from people, just as any other, just as Facebook does and others, time spent. Well, here's my concern. Here's my concern. My concern is that against the backdrop of Illinois doing something incredibly positive, because this is what has to happen. What has to happen is we've got to wake the hell up and recognize that this thing is so out of control already. And we can dig into other areas and examples that I can give you from my own life in terms of where this is spinning out of control. But you've got to understand that this is against a backdrop where the Trump administration, just revealed an AI plan outlining a 10-year moratorium on states being able to regulate this. Yes, they tried. And so you have platforms that are unregulated. You have businesses just pumping out these new businesses

without regulation, and they are preying on people who need actual help. So they're meeting and need, which is what they're very good at. They're identifying meeting and need. And one of the things for people, which I talk about all the time, we talk about this on pivot constantly, the lack of regulation in general in tech and in AI in particular. They don't have, I always like when I'm in a group of people, I say, put your hand up how much regulation you think there is

in AI and people go 100 and it goes 100. And I go, there's zero. There's zero. I'm going to give you some examples in a minute, but I want to unpack this a little bit further because one of the reasons why AI is an incomplete solution for a very big problem that we have in society. So let's just all agree that we are at a moment in time where people getting support for mental health issues. And when I use the word mental health, I'm not just talking about people struggling. Mental health includes learning how to be happy, learning how to manage your stress, learning how to be more resilient, learning how to have better relationships. And so it's a positive thing. And people are looking for help with it, which is a positive thing. Now, here's how I want everybody to think about

AI. AI, I think about it like autocorrect. You know how you, like are typing and then it tries, and you're like, well, that's not what I wanted to say. AI is filling in the blank guessing based on the information you're feeding it and the information that's out there. Right. And the problem when it comes to therapy. And, you know, there's some really, really good research on this. There was a study that was done at Stanford that I have in front of me.

This is the Stanford Institute for Human Centered AI where they first looked at, yeah, where they first looked at what does it mean to be a great human therapist? You've got to be able to treat patients equally. You've got to show empathy, not stigmatize mental health concerns, not enable suicidal thoughts or delusions, and challenge a patient's thinking. Here's the problem with AI. AI tends to feed you validation, and it gives you answers, not options. And based on the prompts that people give, it's only searching the language, but it's taking no other cues like emotion, tone of voice, stress levels and responses that you can see, past history. Unless somebody actually gives you that, it's not taking any of that into consideration. And so I want to talk about something that's positive before we kind of jump into the fact that what's needed here is regulation. There was a study from my alma mater, Dartmouth, okay, that came out literally just a couple months ago. It was published in March, and Dartmouth researchers conducted the first ever clinical trial of generative AI powered therapy. And they found, and this is important, that people that were diagnosed with depression,

experienced a 51% average reduction in symptoms using generative AI and a therapeutic model. All right, okay? So leading to clinically significant improvements in mood and overall well-being. If you had generalized anxiety, it reported an average reduction in symptoms of 31%. However, here's the thing that they said.

The problem is it's okay if it is supervised by a human being. When it's not. When it's not, AI is fundamentally not able to work autonomously. And the problem is without regulation, and again, let's applaud the state of Illinois for caring more about the people rather than the unmitigated profits that companies that are using AI are allowed to create. That without any kind of regulations, companies are not going to do this, period. No, of course not. Of course not.

Yeah. They didn't fix social media. They didn't put safety in place. Not only do they not fix it, but when they saw that it was damaging kids' mental health, they doubled down on the algorithms. So we've seen this with big tobacco. We've seen this with social media. Let's not be idiots, okay? Let's let them give us the platitudes and the, like, empty promises.

We're here to self-cancer. Yeah, whatever. Okay. You know, you're here to make profits because you're a public company. And you now don't have to regulate a report to anybody. And so let me, this is the part where we have to go, no, no, no, no, we've got to pressure the people that are paying attention in states where they are. So what guardrails would you like to see in place?

Oh, I want to see, I want to see tremendous regulation. Do you see that as the money they have is, the money they bring to bear is massive. They're standing next to Trump on the podium. There has to be, like, you're either the kind of a guardrail. Well, a guardrail, a very good one is what happens. in Illinois. That's a very good one because you're now putting a stake in the ground to saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, people matter. And we can't just put something out here that isn't actually helping people and that has oversight. Right. Like, this is why we have

consumer safety laws. Correct. And yet they don't seem to apply to something that is not being regulated. It would apply to a cigarette. It would apply to a chemical. It would apply. Why? Because people matter. Right. People matter more than the profits of a company. At least they used to. And so I want to say that there's something very promising, but what they concluded in the study at Dartmouth is that while the results are promising, no generative AI agent is ready to operate fully autonomously in mental health because there is such a very wide range of high-risk scenarios that can occur. And so here's another example. I would love to have an x-ray done and have it like scanned by AI, but I want a doctor to look at it. after the AI gives you its solutions. That's it. Because one of the things that also can happen is, like, AI is fantastic for administrative tasks, for other things, for communicating with people. But when you allow it to operate autonomously, now we get into massively dangerous situations.

And it also tries to be pleasing. It tries to, you don't know what it's going to answer. It's not really, well, because here's the other thing. It's not user generated, but it is at the same time. Well, and a lot of times the answer is wrong. Like, the other day, if you did a search on me, you would see that I drive a Lamborghini and I'm divorced, and then I'm also, I've converted to Islam. How's that going for you? Well, none of it's true. I understand. But that's what people also don't understand. Oh, God, no, pickup truck.

And so I think it's important because we've also gotten to this point where you go to it and you think that it's right. And what's coming everybody is advertising. Absolutely. And when it goes to advertising, it means that the longer it keeps you on the platform, then the more money that people make. It's true, but not even think, but people don't think about it. Yeah, but Maude Mosberg, my partner for many years, for 20 years, nailed it right from the beginning.

He said, he called Mark Zuckerberg a rapacious information thief. Well, let's talk about that. Yes, so we're going to talk about the influx, the information influx, about it without overwhelming you. First of all, how do you, when you use generative AI or deal with the influx of news that overwhelms you, some of which is true. I don't. I don't deal with an influx of news.

You don't. Well, I'll tell you why, because I understand. But if you want to stay informed, without feeling overwhelmed. Yeah, of course. So, you know, this is a very simple thing. Like, think about input versus output. And what are you allowing into your mind?

Mm-hmm. It's that simple. Do you trust the voices? Like food. You're talking about information. Right, but it's like food. Just like twinky, twinky, twinky. Yes. So are you allowed, if garbage in, garbage out. Which is a computer term. Yes. And so if you are serious about your stress and your peace and your success in life and your health,

you will get very serious about what you allow in to your mind. You have control, a lot more control than you believe. So some might argue some of it's addictive, but go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, it is. It is, absolutely. So, you know, cocaine's addictive. I don't sleep next to an apeal. You don't?

Not in your Lamborghini? No. No. And I'm kind of, you know, I'm being like punchy about this, but like stop blaming the phone and actually recognize that the phone is a tool. What's on it is addictive. But if you know it's addictive, then adjust your behavior so that you're that you don't become the tool.

Right. So when you do, how do you stay informed, though, and not check out? Because one of the things is just being completely passive, especially, and the fact that doom scrolling is rather enjoyable in some fashion. Well, that's why we do it. Yeah. You know, what's interesting about doom scrolling is it actually, you know, the research is very interesting around this, is that it is a lot like pulling a slot machine.

Mm-hmm. There's a very, like, kind of seductive, trance-like thing. of just pulling that slot machine, and that's also why we do it. Another reason why we do it is because all day long, we feel like our time and energy has been hijacked by work, by other people's drama, by the stress of life, by the headlines

that when you get home and you plop on the couch, there's almost like this fuck you experience that you have, and you're like, I'm just going to take back my life by spending three hours doing nothing. We all do it. And so understanding that and that you're going to fall into that trap every once in a while,

which, by the way, when you're also stressed, Mm-hmm. You tend to do. Oh, way more. The research is very clear that when you're very stressed out or even remotely stressed out that you are way more susceptible to these cheap dopamine hits. And yes, the phone, not the phone itself, but the stuff on the phone is designed to keep you on it because the longer that you give your attention to it, the more money people make. And the more it gives you things. You had Tristan Harris just talked about this. But so the thing I want to just say, though, is you have more power than you think. So give people practices, because they don't think they do. Because the element of addiction is massive here, much more. And one of the things I always say is, one, it's addictive, two, you need it for work. Yeah, and you need it for social. I get it, but it's hard not to be digital.

It's impossible. Well, I'm not saying don't be a monk and live in the mountains. What I'm saying is develop some fucking boundaries. So talk about that. Here's a great way to start. The next time you're standing and, line, don't reach for your phone. Difficult.

Yeah. Don't reach for your phone. Three lousy minutes. Don't reach for your phone. Feel the tension. Don't reach for your phone. Did you see that? There was an article in Atlantic saying

what things we did before the internet. And someone was, I read it and then a lot of people were commenting and said, what did you do? I said, everything. We did everything. Like, I don't know, but we did. Like, it was fine. Yeah.

But it starts. with you. Like, literally stand in line. Five, four, through, two, don't, don't reach for your phone. And as people start pissing you, let them. And let me just stand here and take a deep breath and just be in this moment. Boredom. And that's what you're talking about. Or presence. Mm-hmm. Like, presence. And just create a pocket between you and this lie you're telling yourself that you need to be constantly attached to everything. No music, no. Why? Like, If you're fine, if you want to listen to music, but I just, fine if you're listening to a podcast, but if you're reflexively, mindlessly, reaching for your phone, train yourself not to.

Here's another one. Another one to do is when I am done working, this has changed my life, because I used to be guilty of, you know, I'd come downstairs, you have four kids, I have three kids. I would literally be on my phone for work or on my, and then I would shut it down and now I'm ready, and then everybody else is on their phones, and now I'm yelling at everybody else to get off their phones. It starts with you. This is the dumbest thing. And again, this is the one criticism, one of the criticisms that I get for my work is, well, it's so simple.

I'm like, it's not simple to most of us, okay? Yes, right. Is that how they say it just like? Yeah, kind of like, do you that again. It's so simple. It's so simple. I'm like, well, only to the intellectuals does it seem simple. To the rest of us, idiots, like this stuff is pretty difficult.

But I set up a charging station in the kitchen. This is the dumbest thing. I started to realize that in moments I want to be in person, I have to have my phone off my person. And I started to train myself to put my phone off my body when I was coming downstairs and it's time for dinner or whatever. And it has changed my life because I reflexively reach for it without realizing it when it's on me. Right. And when it's off you and you start to train yourself, again, it goes back to that line in the grocery store where you literally just build a sleep. little pocket of peace and presence. Now you're taking that pocket and you're putting that

pocket of peace and presence into your life in your home. And what's super cool is there's a lot of research about this. I think it's the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Vienna. Did these studies about the parental phone use and its impact on kids. Completely. That's the problem. Yes. Because everyone's got the problem. Well, the more you're on your phone, the more your kids. are. And the more you feel that your kid's behavior is out of control, guess what? The more yours is 100%. I always think the people 30 to 50 are the problem. But here's the good news. The good news is it also starts with you because the more you have balance and boundaries and the more present

you are, the more your kids become. So another great thing that you can do is we have a rule that if we are sitting down for dinner, it's only dinner, not breakfast. Don't do this. Don't do this at breakfast. It will not work. At dinner, no phones. Not on your body, not on the table. And it has, we've been doing this for probably 10 years in our household. And it has changed our life. There's a lot of research about having just one family dinner a week and how it just impacts your health and your happiness and your connection. Almost five, two, three. Yeah. And we play this game, high low. It's a camp game. What's the high of the day? What's the low of the game? And at first, you're kidding, oh, stupid game. Rose and Thorne. Yeah, Rose and Thorne.

bud. Yes. And so you can do those kinds of things. And now what are you doing? You're building a pocket for your family of peace and connection. I also, like Dr. Tama Bryant, I don't know if you've had her on the, I think she's the current president of the American psychiatric or psychology, and she's a professor at Pepperdine. She basically had this statement when I interviewed her on our podcast that was like, I really want you to question why you think it's relaxing. to watch horror or crime? Correct. I don't watch it anymore. At night. No, I don't watch them.

She's like, that is an indication of trauma. I'm watching gilded age. I'm watching gilded age. Anything like silly is the thing I will watch. By the way, hunting wives. Hunting wives? Okay, I'm going to take it. I live in Vermont. I'm going to take a look at it. Maga Christian Trumpers that suddenly take a turn toward lesbianism. It's fantastic.

Inexplicably, but it works. It's fantastic. Besides from that, one of the things I interviewed the guy who's created adolescence, which was this Netflix special, which is a lot less traumatic than I thought, which I thought was in it because it was so well done. And then the woman who did social studies, which was, she followed kids around, they gave her access to all their social media. And one of the things both of them took away from was the need for, that kids wanted them removed from their lives.

Yes. That the kids were happier without it, which was. Well, part of the problem, and here's the thing is that, so our son, for his senior project in high school, did this big six, six-month-long research study at his public school for the principal headmaster person. And conclusively, what all the students said is they wish everybody weren't on their phones as much, but the problem is the social pressure. And here's another big switch for me as a parent is that I was super judgy. I'm like, you know, you guys are all idiots. You're spending all this time online,

doing dumb stuff on social media. The truth is, like, when you see the phone with your kids, I want you to see their two closest friends because that's what it represents to them. And there's a tremendous amount of social pressure that I didn't understand that our kids are under. And again, because I was like mischange and control until I was like, okay, let me be with you. How do you feel about your phone news? What are you actually using it for? Why do you feel the need to sleep with this thing, which I don't allow in our house? And that is another boundary, by the way, is do not sleep with your phone.

Massive study came out, University of Southern Florida, recent study. Looking at 11 to 13-year-olds, they did find positives around phone and the ability to connect with friends because from a, you know, social standpoint and a biological standpoint, that's the age where you start to separate and you want to. One out of four, 11 to 13-year-olds are sleeping with the phone in their hand. No. It is the single most damaging thing that a child could do because of the disruption to sleep. and the cascading effect that the disruption of sleep has on learning. On everything. On everything.

And I completely had a menopause moment and forgot where I was going with this. That's okay. I like it. It's fine. Oh, so our son, Oakley, did this. Is that your next book, Menopause Moment? No, I'm not. I don't know that I'll write another book.

Really? Yeah, yeah. Because when you have something this, like, this is an unprecedented moment. First of all, I'm so excited that people are excited about a book. You're not doing the sequel, Let Them Eat Cake or anything like that. No, no. Because, you know, I'm excited people are interested in reading. You should do a book called Eat Cake and then put them right next to each.

Eat cake. I'm telling you. No. I know. I'm not doing it. You want to know why? I know the paradox of choice, dude. Okay.

I know all that research where you overwhelm people with choices. Nope. That's a cute idea. I'm not doing it. I'm not going to fall for, like, the temptation to do more. I know that, like, you. You said your piece. I said my piece.

You said your piece? Yeah, I feel like this is my legacy. This is said your piece. I like you said your piece. Now you're moving on. Oh, back to Oakley. So he did this huge project. And basically, conclusively, all the students were like, I'd love to be off this more, but everybody's on it.

Yeah. And so the school ended up adopting a policy where they take the phones at the beginning of class, they just dump them in a basket. Right. Because one of the biggest reasons why it's hard for states to legislate this or school districts to do is the parents are pains in the asses. That's right. They are. You do not need to be in touch with your children. Do not.

That is a major problem. I had a huge argument with a parent about this, and I said, you know what we did before we went to the office? Yes. Somehow we didn't die. Yes. And then they brought in school shootings. I'm like, you need to stop.

Yes. Right now. Right. They don't need to text you during a school shooting. Well, by the way, if they're in the middle of a school shooting, they should be running. You want them to be focused on running and hiding. That's correct. Yeah.

All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll come back. We'll talk about mankeeping. I'm Jessica David Foxxie. scene narrator at Vulture and host of Goodwin a show with the best interviews with your favorite comedians ever. And this week on our podcast, stand-up comedian Bill Burr. Yes, that Bill Burr. My new perspectives, there's nothing wrong with being a billionaire. But if somebody is working 40 hours a week,

160 hours a month, and they can't make their rent, you're not paying them enough money. Maybe you should just be worth 900 million. You can watch Good One every week at YouTube.com slash vulture or listen to wherever you get your podcast. New episodes drop on Thursdays. Have a good one. My name's Sean Ramos for him. I'm outside the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., with one question, do you think we should go to Mars? I don't think you should live in Mars, no. I don't know why just Mars. I think as Earthlings, we are a nosy group of people. And I really don't think that we have any business going to Mars. Our knowledge about the solar system and the universe will grow substantially.

I think maybe we should just leave Mars alone, just sit with Earth. Like so many innovations are going to come out of it because so many different companies are going to be fighting to get, you know, that first ticket to Mars. So I feel like we should. But at the same time, we should solve some problems here first. I think we need to expand what we know, what we see. Honestly, for our own benefit. benefit. You should go way beyond. Today, explained from Vox, is taking a summer sojourn on Mars. Join us. In 1961, President Kennedy's FCC chairman, Newton Minow, gave a speech deriding

commercial TV programming. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland. He wanted to do something about it. Is there one person in this room who claims that Broadcasting can't do better. So Congress created something called the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He might not have realized when you were interacting with the CPB, but it happened all the time. When you were tickled by Elmo. Happy International Joke Day. When someone moved you on the drive home.

This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. CPB is the reason you're hearing my voice right now. But due to big, beautiful cuts, the organization announced on Friday that it would be shutting down next year. What's taking its place? If you ask this White House, they might say something like Prager You. What is Prager You on Today Explained? Mel, we're back.

It's time to talk about mankeeping. A recent piece in New York Times explores the term coined by a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford, Angelica Putsio Ferrara. It refers to a growing emotional burden women feel in relationships because the straight men tend only to open up to their wives or girlfriends. It's driven by a topic we tend to talk a lot about on the show. a 2021 survey from the Survey Center of American Life found that 15% of men said they didn't have any close friends. How would you suggest a woman relationship experiencing man keeping? I have Scott Galloway, who I have to keep.

No, let him. Let him. That is the whole. You know why the show's popular? I let him. That is exactly why. So we'll go to that. Oh, I don't know.

Some of your female listeners are getting tired of it. Of him? I know that, but then they come up to me. I know, but people listen to, like, people that irritate them. Yeah, that's exactly right. But they do come up to me. They like the struggle. So I don't read comments ever, speaking of which.

I don't know why. That's smart. I only do it when I'm preparing to come on a show. Oh, do you? Okay. So thank you for telling me about it, though, but I'm still going to not listen to them. Let them complain in the comments. Because you know what?

You can't control what other people think? That's right. Good for you. Yeah. I have a lot of people do. Like, how can you put up with it? I'm like, it's none of your business. It's none of your beeswax.

So talk about this man-key. How do women in relationship experience in mankeeping? And talk about the boundaries around that because I think dating is definitely, for some reason, become harder. And what advice do you have for men? Well, I thought that this was a very interesting article because it was very polarizing. All the women were like, finally!

Like, somebody's saying something! And all the guys were like, excuse me, this is a very broad voice. Yes, you know, like broad brush. This is reductive. Yeah, give me a break. So, again, I'm one of these people that likes to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. And there is a major issue going on when it comes to men and their ability to express and understand their emotions and their ability to connect and their ability to ask for help.

And, you know, interestingly, just next week we have this episode airing with Jason Wilson, this New York Times best selling author who does incredible work in Detroit with young men and emotional resilience. He's incredible. And it's the episode's like the reason why boys and men are quietly struggling and how to support them. So let's just take it for fact that men are struggling. And Jason Wilson's analogy is women tend to have a emotional depth or at least awareness that is broader than most men. And there's a bazillion factors, whether it is the socialization of boys, whether it is gender stereotypes, whether it is the framework of a lot of men. friendships, which I'm going to get into because I think this tracks back to the nature of friendship for young boys versus girls, and then what changes when you become an adult.

But he basically says, women have that, like, have that, like, 64 crannbox that they're dealing with, and dudes have, like, the eight. Right. And that's an issue, because if you don't know the deeper issue that you're dealing with, you're going to always reach for anger or sadness. And typically, if somebody's expressing anger or sadness, there's a lot of other deeper emotions going on that people don't know how to talk about. So often shame, but go ahead. Yeah, often shame. And, you know, if you don't know the difference between the two,

you know, guilt is when I did something bad and shame is when you say, I'm bad because of what I did. And so blaming men for this doesn't actually solve the bigger problem. And I think the bigger problem starts a lot earlier. Like if you look at all the research around friendship, boys tend to create friendships and groups. Girls tend to have closer relationships one-on-one. A lot of men tend to make their friends based on teams and based on groups that are organized for them. And when they graduate from high school or for college, they end up going to the next team, which is work. And now we're in a situation where we have Hydeburg work. We're in a situation where people are very disconnected.

And you have a situation where guys have defaulted to needing groups to be organized in order to feel like you have relationships with other people. Yep. It's so interesting. My daughter has individual friends and my sons have the boys. Yes. Which is really interesting. Yes. Yes, exactly.

And so when you get into a heterosexual relationship, you are now in a relationship with somebody who is used to connecting one-on-one. And so you are probably, in a lot of cases, training this person for the first time in some of the deeper nuances of your emotional or inner life. And so I don't think it's a bad thing that you might be in a relationship with somebody

that leans on you and that needs your support. But I do think it is a bad thing if you are not effective in getting your person to be more proactive with friendship and to be more proactive outside of the relationship. Oh, hell yes.

Hell yes. And, you know, I write about this in the Let Them Theory and it's a really helpful framework that makes you really think about friendship differently. Most of us don't understand friendship. And friendship,

Once I explain this to you, you'll be like, oh, my God. So simple now. Yeah, it's so simple. Like, what the fuck? Well, we all know. So for your whole life, the conditions for friendship from zero to 20 were there. Because you were with people your age all the time. Right.

And you were doing the same things all the time. And you had the same milestones. Celebrated birthdays, graduations, same vacation schedules, all of it. Right. When you hit 20, all of a sudden, the great scattering, as I call it, happens. And everybody scatterers. in different directions. And then the only thing that's holding your old friends together is a group text chain that gets kind of dwindles to less and less and less as people start to jump into

their lives. And then we start to say, I have no friends, which is not true. And so let me tell you the three pillars based on research that need to be present to create friendship. And I want people to understand this, because when you see the pillars, you can support people in your life, whether it's young boys or young men or your partner, in understanding. what it's going to take to create these relationships that matter. So number one, you have to have proximity. Proximity is the single most important condition for friendship. There was research at the University of Kansas that was done about friendship, and I'm going to probably get the facts or the actual digits wrong, but I'm going to be in the right range. In order to have a casual

friend, you need to spend almost 80 hours with somebody. In order to have a super close friend, over 200 hours. Right. And that proximity creates the condition So, you know, like, other school parents. Other school parents, seeing them on the sidelines. In class, sitting next to people, at work, you used to have a lot of friends at work, right? Because you spent so much time with them. So that brings me to the second condition that needs to be present for good friendship to happen. And that is timing.

So timing means are we in the same time of our lives? Are we both raising kids? Are we around the same age? Are we interested in the same things? This explains why you can spend 50 to 60 hours a week with people at work and really love them. And they're awesome. But you're not best friends. Right.

Because you may be in your 20s until you'll go out and get wasted and then you're puking in a garbage can on Sunday night. And then Monday morning, it's like, hey, what did you do? Oh, I went to a soccer game with my kids. You're in different timing of life. So there's only so much debt. Third condition for friendship, energy. Energy is just about whether or not there's a fit or not. and I've come to believe it has a lot more to do about what your priorities are.

This is why you can be super close friends with people, but if you decide to stop drinking, all of a sudden you're not that close because the energy shifts. Right, right. Now, here's the most important thing. The reason why it's important to understand that it's about proximity, it's about timing, and it's about energy, is that when friendships naturally come and go,

it doesn't mean anything's wrong. Right. It's actually good. I agree. And this, you got to let them, let them come and go. And the mistake that people make is they start to say, I have no friends. That's not true. People come and go in your life, and it's a beautiful thing.

And at any moment, you can decide that friendship is important to you. And make it appropriate. Yes. And, you know, every time in your life that you move, or you go through a divorce, or you have any major job change, you're going to experience a little scattering of friendship, because proximity will change. and so will the timing and so will energy. Like, for example, my husband and I moved to Southern Vermont when we were in our 50s, and it was shocking to move to a new place and literally go, oh, my God, I have no friends here. Right.

I got to start all over. And you feel like that first week in college where it feels like everybody has got their group and you're the only idiot sitting alone in the cafeteria and you don't want to be that cringy person that goes up to other people. What did I do? Well, first, I cried and stayed alone in my house for six months and literally it was like, what are we doing? This is why I'm so good at giving advice because I fuck up my life all the time. And I find myself in these situations where I'm like, okay, well, nobody's going to magically parachute out of the sky and fix my life. No one's coming. I'm either going to suffer in misery or I'm going to fucking fix this.

And again, let's go back to some of the things we talked about. The brain, Dr. Kay, defaults to what's easy. being miserable and crying is easy and at some point you'll get to a point where you're like it's actually harder to stay in here and sit with myself than to push my ass out the door and to go to that local coffee shop

you have to make a thing when I moved to California from D.C., I had a wonderful social life in D.C., friends, everything else, and I moved to California to cover the nascent internet industry, I didn't know anyone, and I just broke up with someone too.

So it was just like, and I spent a couple months like crying in a rainy San Francisco house And I remember when spring came, you know, I'm going to say yes to everything. Everything I'm in, even this smallest little thing. And it was changed everything. Yeah, it does. Like, I started, honest to God, by just going to the coffee shop. And then instead of sitting there alone, I force myself to start turning and talking to people on a line instead of looking at my phone.

I, you know, come here. Oh, I like your socks. Like, just complimenting somebody is a great way. Love bombing. Yeah, to just strike up a cut. Turn and talk to the people next to you. Just, it's a way to. start to come out of your shell.

Actually, longevity depends on talking to strangers. It's really interesting. Yes. Are you going to talk about the warm, like, connection? Yeah. So here's the thing. We undervalue the foundational importance of what they call them something like cold relationships, but it's, I like to call them warm relationships.

These are the barista at the coffee shop. This is the person that you see at the dog park. Stopping and talking to folks, learning their name. And here's a great hack. So for your favorite coffee shop or the place that you go a lot, your restaurants, whatever, the gym, create a contact listing, put in the coffee shop name in the notes section. Put their names. With a description.

Beard and glasses makes a great cup of coffee. His name is Kevin. And then you're going to learn that his dog is Ollie. And then before you go into the coffee shop, you look at it. Yes. And then you can walk in and you go, hey, Kevin, how you know it's Mel? And you start to build this framework that actually matters because you start to feel seen and you start to feel like there is a small community.

And from there, you loosen up and start to... And they don't have to be your friends. Absolutely not. And actually, there's so many studies now, as I told you, I'm working on this longevity series. Talking to people you've never... There's a group called, I think, time spent that puts together six people. It's got 100,000 people across the globe doing this. You've never met.

You meet six people. They just put you together and you spend the evening with them. And every study shows, this is like one of the – everyone's like, what can you about longevity? Should you, you know, do shrimp semen? You should do this. I'm like, you know what I mean? You know what I mean?

I know, but I'm like, well, ugh. Like, I'm digging the vein out of the back of that thing before I eat it. Shrimp semen? Apparently. Anyway, that said, the biggest thing is community and meeting people you don't know and establishing. It's fascinating.

Like, actual links to longevity with that. Of course. Like, it's not, like, in life. Yes. It's not about the destination or the journey. Right. It's about the company. Oh, I knew you're going to say that.

So one personal question, how do I learn to let Scott? Do you have to? No. I'm just kidding. Apparently not going to the comedy. What is it about Scott that you need to learn to accept? No, I don't.

I do let him. I actually, interestingly enough, It's the first relationship. Often with men like Scott, sometimes when they were sort of narcissistic or pushed on things, I would try to stop them. And I think Scott's been the greatest success because I do let him. And I think it gives people permission not to fight with people so much to be able to disagree and be okay with it and still be, not just be civil, but be friends with people you disagree with. And it gives people permission to laugh a little bit. Well, I want you to imagine something.

So one of the reasons why the let them theory is so important, particularly in this polarized world, is that we all have a complete intolerance of an opposing point of view. And the only way, and this is, again, very research-based, I'll give you kind of a visual to think about. Because the only way that you are actually going to influence somebody else's opinion is if you give them the space to first, share theirs and to feel understood. So I want you to imagine that you've got two glasses and one glass is filled with red water and one glass is filled with blue water. And these represent two people that have two very different points of view about life. What we do in life when somebody starts to go off or act in a way that we don't like is instead of like, when they start to go off and act in way, imagine that red glass is tipping over and they're pouring all of it out of their

brain. The second you react, respond, like, disagree, bitch, ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like, what that is actually is it's as if you've taken your glass of blue water and tried to pour it on top of the red. There's no room in the brain to hear it. They have to first feel as though you have listened and heard what they've had to say. And so I think a lot about the fact that the saying let them forces me to stop just getting so pissed off or getting your digs in or getting my digs in and just let them pour it out it's sort of like somebody puking like if somebody's puking you don't stand in front of them you stand at the side you stand far away yeah don't you hold their hair you like if they've got long hair right you rub their backs or anything else maybe anything else

yeah yeah you don't let it come out yeah and then somebody is able to hear you right but we have to build this tolerance of being able to let people be who they are and have their opinions and then let me be more effective at understanding what I think I hear. Yeah. And then saying something. But I want to give you a framework to use of Scott. This comes from Charles Deweig. Pueh's surprise winning. I know Charles. Charles is fantastic. So he has this three-part framework. He basically says people are only ever having three different conversations, right? they're having a practical one, which is really like, okay, I have a goal, let's find a solution. They're having an emotional one where they're venting.

And what's the goal of an emotional conversation? I want empathy. Kara, I want you to validate me. Or they're having a social one. They just want acknowledgement. And I think often listening to you guys, Scott is having an emotional or social conversation and you're trying to have a practical one. And one of the things that have changed my parenting is I've loved.

literally adopted this phrase that is, do you want me to listen? Or would you like my advice? And nine times out of ten, people just want you to listen. Another thing that you could say to Scott that I love, because I, you know, when he does things that are just like, oh, my God. And they're like, when you opened up the show where he was in his apartment, he made that joke about how, like, the last time a woman was here, you know. $60. Yes, exactly. You can just say, dude, that is below a standard for my response. Or you can also say, could you repeat that? Yeah.

Oh, I like that. Because in the pause, the first one I think is priggy. The first one is priggy. But in the pause, could you, could you repeat that? Yeah. He's going to be like, I didn't mean that. Yeah. But the pause and asking somebody to repeat it forces them to reflect.

Yeah. On what just happened. Yeah. You can also say, did you actually mean to be offensive? No, no, that sounds prigy. Well, see, there you go. You can do. But so, but it depends on the person and how you want to solve it.

But I love that. Yeah. Pause and just. like, could you repeat that? What? Huh? I was just kidding. You know what I do sometimes, though, when people are acting badly, I go, is that the wind?

Like, I pretend I never heard it in the first or just not acknowledge it in any way. It's often very effective. Yeah. You know? Is that the wind is my favorite expression. I used to do with my kids when they were being really bad. And they're like my one, the other day I did it with my three-year-old. He was being really mean to his sister.

And I said, Claire, just say, is that the wind? Is that the wind? Because he was trying to hurt her. See, the only problem with doing that in our family is that that's a cover for a fart. All right. Now, we'll take one more quick break, and thank you for the advice. We'll be back for wins and fails. Hey, this is Peter Kafka, the host of channels, the show about what happens when tech and media get mashed up.

And this week, I'm talking to comedy journalist Jesse Dave. Fox about the comedy boom, and why it's fueled by a combination of TikTok, YouTube, Netflix, and podcasts, which, as Jesse reminds us, should rhyme with stories we've heard before. The thing about comedy, because it is the cheapest to produce art form, in my opinion, whenever new technology exists, they're the first ones there. That's this week on channels, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. What's a Kennedy doing in rural America?

I was in West Virginia, met with this young organizer. That young man said, we've got an idea of what we want to do. Help us realize it. Don't tell us what we're doing wrong. Don't denigrate us in this process. And he's right. I'm Preet Bharara, and this week, former Congressman Joe Kennedy III joins me on my podcast, stay tuned with Preet,

to discuss the Democrats' condescension problem, his controversial uncle, RFK Jr., and why he's going to deep red states to build a movement from the ground up. The episode is out now. Search and follow. Stay tuned with Prete, wherever you get your podcasts. Mel, we're back. Let's hear some wins or fails.

Would you like me to go first? You go first. Okay. A fail. Tim Cook. It's not a fail. It's a win for him. Apple is trying to stay in Trump's good graces,

investing in additional $100 billion in U.S. jobs and suppliers, bringing a total of $600 billion over four years. although if you look at the last time, they didn't end up spending that. This is basically a press release. And it includes a $2.5 billion Kentucky-based Corning, which they've already there. So glass and the iPhones and watch what we made in the USA, but not in the iPhones, but they've already been doing that. So they're doing a lot of things for Trump's benefit. And in doing so, he was in the Oval Office announcing the New Deal, and he presented Trump with this plaque that was a piece of this corning glass along with a gold stand. And I just thought. thought, here's one of the good guys doing this. And he is a decent fella, I have to say. But it reminds you that everything is for the shareholders, no matter what. Profits over people. Profits over people.

Even someone who's a relatively decent fellow like to cook, you don't have to be an Elon must to do something that's a real fail. And so that's where we are right now. If people like this do this, you know where we are. And it works because giving him a little gold statue makes him feel better. I think my win is I love South Park. I've done it again. I just, they're so good. And sometimes I don't like some of the stuff they do, but I got to say, really funny.

They don't, they don't suffer fools. They brought the latest episode, they had already done the Trump one that got everyone all hot and bothered, right in the middle of a deal that they, that the company did something really terrible in order to get the deal done. But they made J.D. Vance look like tattoo from Fantasy Island. I'm old enough to remember Fantasy Island. Oh, the plane. The plane. I can't do that one. I know.

The plane. That's true to scare the shit out of me. Go whack and watch it. Some of them stay okay. That one, you're really like, oh, my God. The show poked fun at Homeland Security had Christy Gnome with a running gag of her face continually melting, and she keeps shooting puppies, obviously. And I just, they went there, and I like when people do that.

And that's what satire is for, and it can seem mean. But whoever's in power, I really like when you, when this is what, You use your satirical talents for. I thought it was really great. So those are my wins and fails. So my fail is this recent case that the federal court handed down in San Francisco. Oh, the lawyer's coming back. Yeah.

Well, no, this really pisses me off, honestly. Okay. All right. Where they ruled in favor of AI companies having the legal right to upload copyrighted material into large language modeled things. And let me just explain what this means. If you write a book, somebody can go and buy your book for $25 and upload the entire transcript into AI and use it with unfettered access or any citation to you or any link out to you or anything to you. And this is the single biggest raid, I think, of intellectual property. And there are lots of authors that are bringing lawsuits.

They brought one. Tony Robbins is. Yep, Tony Robbins is. And, you know, what is a huge fail. And again, we're kind of touching on something we already talked about is the lack of regulation. To put this in perspective, every single day, there are hundreds, if not thousands of AI-generated fake shit of me online. I had the same half of my book come out at Amazon. Yes, and here's the problem.

I, and I'm not whining, this is an occupational hazard. I am concerned as a lawyer and a citizen. because I have 38 million followers and one of the largest podcasts in the world. You do. I cannot get the platforms to take the shit down. Right.

And if I can't do it, how the hell is the average... They're stealing your stuff. It's not even stealing my stuff. They're stealing my face and my voice and putting a fake mouth out. Oh, they already do. They already...

There are things with me out there saying all kinds of inflammatory stuff about Pakistan. And I can't get it taken. down. And if I can't do that, what's going to happen to the average person who is having their identity stolen, who is having this happen to them? What is happening to the independent artists that can't afford a lawyer who's having their work ripped off? Our podcast, my audio book got uploaded to an AI bot and they generated a fake version of it with two AI bots reading the

audiobook. And under this case law, the fair use doctrine and derivative works, they have a claim that it generated by AI with fake AI robot voices, that that is now protected because it's derivative of what I did. Now, here's the problem that I have. You can upload it to Spotify, which they did. It started ranking in the top 10 podcasts in the world, marketed as my audiobook. It took me three months to get them to remove it. Three months. And I have the means to get it removed. Why? Well, because there's no regulation. Right.

And there's no requirement, and this is why we're failing. There needs to be a requirement that something that is either generated by or spoken by AI is labeled as such. Because I will compete against a robot, but I'd like to know that it's a robot. As a consumer, I would like to know if I'm listening to your voice or if I'm listening to something that somewhere in some room overseas created in some den, an AI version. They also get money that does do you. Of course. Savannah Guthrie wrote a book about her religion and some AI made a workbook and her mother bought it, thinking it was her workbook on how to do this. And so the lack of the requirement of labeling, I think a lot of consumers would go, well, I don't want to listen.

I don't want to read that news if AI wrote it. I'd rather read the news by this journalist that I trust. This is why so many people are going to substack. So I think it's a huge fail this litigation. Like this is, to me. Do you want to create an AI version of yourself? No, no. Some people that are doing it.

Absolutely not. One version of me is enough. I would like to stay married. We're going to be married for 29 years this year. I'd like to stay married. I feel like this case law is as big of a deal as Citizens United. Wow. I really do.

Like, I believe Citizens United laid the foundation for the unraveling of democracy. Full stop. I believe this case law is one hundred. percent setting a precedent that is really going to unravel copyrighted work and artistic work. And it's also setting a precedent for a lack of regulation, which from a consumer standpoint, I want to know. Don't you want to know? If a person made it? I've been railing about this for a... So that's, that case law for me is a major law. Here's a huge win. I think at the age of 60 and 56, you and I are fucking winning. To be competing on a global level,

I'm 62. Yeah, I know you are saying you look incredible. Thank you. Once again. Thank you. You're welcome. I agree. That's the best response I have ever heard.

Everybody, do you hear that? I want you to send this, that section right there. Send this to every woman and girl you have. When you compliment them, teach women and girls in your life to say, I agree. Thank you. I agree. Thank you. You're right.

You're correct. Amazing. Some guy came with something else I did a work thing and they're like, that was really good. I go, no, it was fucking fantastic. And they're like, well, that's ego maniacal. I said you just said I was great. No, it's a fact. It's not ego.

It's facts. Them's fact. But I feel in this day and age with all of the tech and the fact that in the podcasting space, it's typically about either entertainment or, you know, kind of pop culture or spreading conspiracy theory for us at our age to have built a podcast that people actually turn to and trust, I think that means we are truly winning. And I love doing it at our age. Yeah, it's like the popularity of Crohn's, you know. Remember that word? It's a word for old ladies. Crone? I'd never heard that word. Oh, my God, look it up.

Is it because Crohn's disease? You get it when you're old? No, C-R-O-N-E-S, Crohn's. Isn't it? I don't know. I don't know what I think. I'm not as smart as you. No, I'm like, you know what?

Don't. No. Mark Twain said it's, it may not. It's spell, it takes a simple mind to spell a word one way, and half the words I don't even know what they mean. Do your simple voice again. That Mel Robbins is so simple. Well, you know, everything she says is really simple. Why didn't you do it?

Was it? I'd say, why didn't you do it then? One time, years ago, Bill Gates was in a meeting with me, and he was talking about the iPhone, which was the most beautiful simple thing, iPod, actually. There was before that. And he goes, what is it? Just a hard drive and a white box. It's so trivial.

And I said, if it's so easy, why didn't you do it? Well, it only seems simple when somebody does it. Correct. And that's the genius in it. It's very easy to make something complicated. It is extraordinarily difficult. and takes a lot of rigor to distill complicated things

into a simple thing that anybody can use and you can remember and share with somebody else and that's what I do. And contrary to that, Steve Jobs to that too, as he said,

it's hard, it's easy to make, it's hard to make complex things simple. It's easy to make simple things complex. And I was like, oh, I was like, Buddha. I was like,

oh my God, he's right. Once again, but it's true. Which you do. Mal, you're fantastic. We love having you on here. It's really wonderful. You deserve all your success. At first, when I first heard you, I was like, no. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, she's right. She's fantastic. I didn't say, oh, she's being. Well, you know what? I don't want to be right. I'd like to be useful.

No, that's what I mean. I think you're, you hit on something and it's not, it's actually got substance behind it and science, which you've cited and stuff like that. And that's the key thing for a lot of people who give easy answers or seem like easy answers. You have the backup, which I really appreciate. And that's all you have to do. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for this show or call 85551 Pivot. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot

and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. I'll be back next week with another amazing co-host to hear Rachel Maddow's coming, David Remnick's coming. We've got so many great people. But, Mel, thank you so much. I love Scott Free August

because I get to spend time with people like you and I've had enough of him for a little while. I will read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Enderdot engineered this episode. Nishot Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things, tech and business. Thank you.