Something You Should Know - How to Be an Adult & Why Traffic Jams Happen and How to Fix Them

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Remember a few years ago when people were saying, “Sitting is the new smoking”? Seriously, what could possibly be so bad about sitting? This episode begins by explaining the problem and what you can do to counter the effects of too much sitting. http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/10/tv.heart.health/ Something has shifted over the last few generations. It used to be that kids looked forward to growing up, becoming an adult and leaving home. Yet, many young people today dread the thought. Why? Apparently, “adulting” just doesn’t look all the appealing plus many young people are unprepared to handle adulthood. That's according to Julie Lythcott-Haims, a writer, former college dean, former attorney and author of the book Your Turn: How to Be an Adult. (https://amzn.to/3q89LOB). Listen as she joins me to explain why this has changed and what we can do to help young people become better adults.  I sometimes think road traffic has a mind of its own. Why does traffic slow down here but speed up there? Why is this lane moving but the one I am in standing still? What makes traffic work when it works and what screws it up when it doesn't? Listen and find out as I speak with Jonas Eliasson an internationally known expert on traffic patterns who is also Director of Transport Accessibility for the Swedish Transport Administration and has an interesting TED Talk on how to solve traffic jams that you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX_Krxq5eUI  Why do people seem to universally love music? Well for one thing it seems to be good for you. Listen as I explain the benefits of listening to music according to a lot of research on the topic.https://www.emedexpert.com/tips/music.shtml PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! Go to https://stamps.com click the microphone at the top of the page, and enter code SOMETHING to get a 4 week free trial, free postage and a digital scale! Get a $75 CREDIT at https://Indeed.com/Something Go to https://FarewayMeatMarket.com promo code: SYSK to get $100 off The Butcher's Holiday Collection and site wide free shipping! Go to https://backcountry.com/sysk to get 15% OFF your first full-priced purchase! https://www.geico.com Bundle your policies and save! It's Geico easy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is an ad for BetterHelp. Welcome to the world. Please, read your personal owner's manual thoroughly. In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you, and have a nice life. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual.

That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHelp.com. Today on Something You Should Know, is sitting really that bad for you? And if so, why? Then, it used to be kids couldn't wait to grow up and become adults. But today, many young people dread it. And I think we have to ask ourselves, why is it that adulthood or adulting

looks so unattractive to young people now? What has changed about what adulting looks like such that they feel that way? Also, is music just enjoyable to listen to, or is it actually good for you? And understanding how traffic flows on the roadways and what causes traffic jams. There is usually something causing this, but this thing can be really, really small. If the road turns slightly so you can't see so far ahead, when it becomes a little bit darker or if it rains or something like that, then people tend to slow down.

All this today on Something You Should Know. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations.

You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. Do you remember a couple of years ago, there was this headline somewhere and people were repeating it and saying this phrase that sitting is the new smoking. And I remember thinking, well, maybe. Seems a little overstated, but it does turn out that sitting is worse for our health than we once thought. And not just on long airplane flights or for couch potatoes. Sitting is pretty much bad for everyone. According to Dr. Barry Braun at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, we pretty much have taken sitting as our default position,

but our bodies just really aren't made for that. Sitting slows down the action of an enzyme that breaks down fats in the blood, like cholesterol. If we add up all the time we're sitting in our cars, at the computer, watching TV, it's just way too much for most of us. And experts say that simply exercising during your usual non-sitting time isn't going to help much either. The recommendation is to just sit less, a lot less, and switch your sitting positions from time to time, or even better, recline.

And that is something you should know. What does it mean to be an adult? For many generations, young people longed to grow up and get out of the house and see the world. But that seems to have changed. Becoming an adult, something people used to look forward to, has become, for many young people, something to dread. So what's caused this? What can we do about it? How and why did the fear of growing up and moving on become a thing?

That's what Julie Lithcott Hames set out to discover. Julie's a writer, former college dean, former attorney, and author of the book, Your Turn to Be an Adult. Hi, Julie. Welcome. Hi, Mike. Thanks so much for having me. So, briefly, in broad strokes here, explain this thing. This thing that didn't used to be a thing, this fear of becoming an adult. I think my heart swells with compassion for millennials, first and foremost.

I was a dean at a university working with the millennial generation, hearing students on my campus lamenting, I don't know how to be an adult. I don't want to be an adult. Adulting is scary. I scanned the national landscape and quickly saw that this wasn't just my students. It was really an entire generation of people expressing trepidation or reluctance to enter a stage of life. I think the older set just entered without as much thought, and I didn't come with a critique of them. My response was instead, wow, what has changed in our society, in our world, what changed about how they were raised or what they confront as young adults,

such that they're feeling discomfort at approaching a stage of life I frankly, and perhaps you also, looked forward to. Yeah, I guess that's why I find this so interesting because I left home basically as soon as I could. After high school, I guess that's why I find this so interesting, because, you know, I left home basically as soon as I could. After high school, I went away to college. I went far away to college. And I really was looking forward to that of, you know, the world is opening up. My life is ahead of me. And I looked forward to it. So maybe what it means to be an adult is different now. So what is the definition of being an adult today as compared to perhaps what it was before? Well, the first thing I want to say is I also wanted to leave the minute I could.

And I think we have to ask ourselves, why is it that adulthood or adulting looks so unattractive to young people now? If you and I couldn't wait and yet young people now are feeling trepidation or reluctance, what has changed about what adulting looks like such that they feel that way? The definition, the old definition, Mike, was simple. Five things, more or less in this order. Finish school, get a job, leave home, marry and have children. It harkens back to an era where everyone was presumed to be straight, where women were the property of their dads until they were the property of their husbands. Their job was to have children, and that was really their primary, if not sole, purpose. We have so many more freedoms now, and it may be impossible for you to move out of your parents'

home today because your wages slash salary have not kept up with the cost of a one-bedroom apartment in the town in which you are employed. And so there are some macroeconomic realities that make the old definition very out of date. So I have come up with a different definition. Adulting is simply the knowledge that when you wake every day, you are more or less responsible for yourself. In contrast, in childhood, you are more or less the responsibility of someone else. So it's not about you're a lone wolf, you're a lone actor, but it is that intrinsic knowledge that, yeah, it's pretty much on me to take care of my bodies, my bills, my business, my belongings. And guess what, Mike? That feels deliciously satisfying, right? There's a high, there's a hit we get from knowing, hey, I accomplished something. Not I'm the most amazing

person in the world, but just simply that sense of, hey, I handled what I met today and I'm absolutely fine. And so what is it that younger people who are entering adulthood are afraid of? I think on the one hand, we who have raised them, and I'm a mom, I want to say. I have a 22-year-old son, a 20-year-old daughter. I'm very in it. And we who have raised kids who are older Gen Zs and millennials tended to have been incredibly involved, incredibly needing to know their every move, watching them constantly at the park and as they played and knowing every little detail

about their schooling and attending their every practice of soccer or clarinet. We were just so hyper vigilant. We have seemed so stressed out and worried as adults, like every single aspect of childhood matters. Everything is of consequence. I think that has to have something to do with why adulting looks so unattractive to them. They're like, why would I want to grow up and be as stressed out and worried and anxious all the time as my parents are? But I think that has contributed. I know that that has contributed. Anecdotally, I know that has contributed

to many young adults feeling like, hey, why would I want that? The other thing is, if we've over-parented, Mike, we've deprived our kids of developing the very skills they need to have if they're going to thrive out there. So if we've always tied their shoes, unscrewed their juice drinks, cut their meat, prepared every meal, filled out every form, argued with every teacher, argued with every coach, we have deprived them of the small experiences in childhood, which in the aggregate would have led to a sense of confidence within them that, oh, hey, I can make it through a day. Oh, I can problem solve. Oh, I can handle that. Oh, I can make a choice. OK, if we've over parented, we've undermined the development of the very basic sense of I know I can agency or self-efficacy that every human has to have in order to make their way forward. Well, there's a lot in what you just said, because you can see it. I mean,

you can see this kind of over-parenting in a lot of cases. And in fact, if you're a parent who doesn't over-parent, you kind of stand out like a sore thumb. And certainly cell phones have added to the problem because now you can track and find out where your kid is every second. And certainly cell phones have added to the problem because now you can track and find out where your kid is every second. And so parents do. And also, it seems like we've trained kids to be afraid, you know, stranger danger, that everybody is a potential threat. And when you think that way, I mean, there's a lot of stress in that. And I want to be super clear, Mike, I don't blame the kids. The kids didn't ask for this childhood. They didn't ask for this kind of upbringing. They may have asked

for a cell phone, but not so that their parents could track their every move. So you and I can sit here and say back in the day, I was allowed to play freely. My parents said, come in when it's dark or come in when we call you for dinner. Kids today don't know what to do with themselves. If they have a free 15 minutes, they feel like something's wrong because they're accustomed to being scheduled. They're accustomed to being told precisely what to do and how to do it. And they're accustomed to being checked up on to see if they did do it. They just, when I've talked with young adults about making use of downtime so that they can imagine and create and brainstorm and dream. They look at

me and they say, that would terrify me. Downtime would terrify me. And that makes me so sad. And so what do we do? Because you can't just flip a switch and say, okay, you're on your own. Good luck. Let me know how things work out. There are two things. There are two answers. One is what should young people do? The other is what should parents do? With respect to the parents, I would offer this. We were supposed to have gradually let go, meaning gradually taught them to do more and more for themselves in the years from, say, two to 18. We need to make up for lost time. You don't just wish a skill upon a person. You're supposed to teach it. And there's a four-step method for teaching any kid any skill, which is first you do it for them, which we're really good at. Next, you do it with them, meaning they're

there. They're watching you do it. Maybe you're narrating to how you do it, teaching. Step three is where we need to get to, which is you watch them do it. You say, hey, kid, it's your turn to make this meal or make a grilled cheese on the stove. I'm going to watch you do it. I'm going to be here in case, you know, I don't want you to set the house on fire, but I'm here just in case. And then step four, they can do it themselves. So we've got to move from steps one and two to steps three and four with every single skill a kid needs to learn. And that's what I want any parent listening to think about. Ask yourself, what is your kid not capable of at whatever age they are, yet you were capable of that very same thing when you were their age? What are three

things you can decide to teach your kid this weekend or this month or this semester, depending on how intricate the skill is. We're supposed to be building skills, handing the reins over to them, so to speak. For young people listening, it's please know that this is your life, not anybody else's. You are not a project of somebody else. You are not a pet on their leash. You are not the evidence of their worth. You are a precious individual. This is your one wild and precious life. And here I'm quoting the late poet Mary Oliver, who said in her poem, Summer Day, tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

And I want young people to hear that, Mike. It is your one wild and precious life. What does wild mean? I think it means untamed, unplanned, unscheduled. It will be, it'll make of itself what it will. Anything is possible. So please be curious about who you are, what you're good at, what lights you up, where you feel joyful and in what kinds of environments you thrive and with whom you feel a sense of belonging. We are talking about growing up and being an adult and why so many young people today

have a real problem with that concept. My guest is Julie Lithcott-Hames. She is author of the book, Your Turn to Be an Adult. At Wealthsimple, we're built for whatever you're building. Built for Jane, who wants to break into the housing market. We're built for Ted, who's obsessed with what's happening in the global markets. And built for Celine, who just wants to retire and explore the world's flea markets. So take a moment and think about what you're building for. We've got the financial tools to help make it happen. Wealthsimple, built for

possibilities. Visit wealthsimple.com slash possibilities. People who listen to something you should know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool.

And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. So, Julie, it's one thing to help kids understand that they need to do things for themselves. They can make their own breakfast. But there are times, I think, where it gets really hard is when life smacks your kid in the face and to let them handle it.

That, if you haven't been doing that, to watch your kid have to suffer and figure it out is really hard. Absolutely. And look, I'm not a sadist or a masochist. I'm not trying to watch my kids suffer. I'm trying to help my kids learn how to do for themselves because one day I won't be here to do it for them. We're supposed to give them the opportunities for all of that learning while being there to prevent them from drowning, falling off a cliff, and in some other way, harming themselves. So here's the more practical example. When the kid constantly oversleeps and you are still waking up your eighth grader and now you're waking up your ninth grader to get them to school, you have to ask yourself, am I going to be waking up my college student?

Am I going to be waking this kid up when they're in the workplace? No, that would be absurd. I'm supposed to teach my kid to be accountable to an alarm clock. And you think to yourself, well, but it's eighth grade. The stakes are so high. I'm here to tell you the stakes only get higher. You are undermining your kid's ability to wake up when they need to. You have made yourself the solution, which is an impermanent solution. So you have to say to your kid, hey, kid, I'm always waking you up. You always miss the bus. This happened to me with my kid in the seventh grade, my daughter, Avery. Sure enough, two days later, she overslept. I made breakfast. She wasn't there. I let her sleep. Someone knocks on the door. It's her friends. They're like, is Avery ready? I was like, no,

I haven't seen her. They race upstairs. They bang on Avery's door. They get Avery. She's mad. She's throwing things. She's, you know, muttering. She comes downstairs, glares at me, leaves the house. She was never, ever late for school again. She learned that lesson and it was a little hard to teach. And if the friends hadn't come by to bang on the door, I would have had to say, what do I do now? Let my kid just sleep in and discover it's 10 o'clock and she's not at school. Yes, that was the right answer in that moment. Here's the thing. If your kid, however, has failed to wake up for this standardized test that they've studied for for weeks, if not months, that's not the day to teach that lesson. That would be cruel. We want to be helpful. We want to be useful, of course. And in those moments of big consequence, we should bring the forgotten clarinet so they can play in the recital, drive them to the SAT.

But in the run-of-the-mill everyday moments, we need to say, oh my gosh, you forgot your clarinet. That must be so frustrating. Oh, how do you think you're going to handle it? And that tells the kid's developing brain, it's mine to deal with. And my parent thinks I can. And that's the most undermining aspect of over-parenting, Mike. Every time we rescue, we're telling them, I don't think you can, so I will. I don't think you can be successful at algebra, so I'll fix it and make it better. I'll do your science project.

That tells your kid, you're not capable. Don't worry. I've got it. It undermines their sense of agency, which undermines their chances for good mental health. All of this is connected. You know what I wonder is why my parents and the parents in that generation of my parents didn't struggle with this. They didn't have to hold themselves back from over-parenting and for doing everything for their kids and being overly involved with their kids.

It somehow seemed easier for them to be at arm's length. Something that I've read that really intrigues me is there's a preciousness about children today. We tend to have two of them instead of five or eight. We often go to some lengths to conceive them today. So if we've been watching them at the stage of sperm, egg, and embryo, you're going to be damn sure we're going to keep an eye on them. That is hover over their every move and take their temperature constantly and measure every poop and pee and all of that once they're born and out into their toddlerhood and out into their elementary school years. So I think

there's something to it. But also a parent's ego is involved today in our children as that project, as that pet, as that evidence of what we can do. So there is this societal pressure around, let us see what your child has achieved, and we will decide how we feel about you accordingly. And that feels like a very, very contemporary concern. I wonder if parents see this in themselves. In other words, I think people are aware that there is this over-parenting and that kids are having trouble developing. And people see it on a societal level. But do they see it in their own house? Or do they rationalize and say, well, things are a little different in my house my kid's a little different he needs a little more help but i'm not contributing

to this problem because you know i i've got it under control and people don't recognize that that they are contributing to the problem what do you think i was an advocate for other people's kids at the college level i've got my own own, as I said, 22 and 20. And I am here to say, it turns out I was over-parenting them. I didn't realize it, Mike. I was railing against the problem while simultaneously contributing to the problem in my own house. I was cutting my kid's meat when he was 10. And that was when I realized, oh, no, I am that parent who's doing way more than my parents

ever did. Therefore, I'm depriving my kid of building skills. How am I going to let go of him at 18 when he can't even cut his own meat at 10? And I began to try to repattern in my own house. And I'm still hard at work at that. My son has given me permission to share, he's now 22, that we have been hard at work at this through family therapy during the pandemic. He came home after two years of college, had had some serious mental health issues, and we read this really damning article out of The Atlantic that came out in May of 2020. the cover story and it's on anxiety in children. My son suffers from anxiety as well as it deals with ADHD. And this article out of the lab of Ellie Leibowitz at Yale shows that when parents over-accommodate a kid's fear, we can end up fomenting full-blown anxiety or we contribute to the creation of full-blown anxiety in our kids. And over-accommodation looks like this. When they're afraid of the dark and we say, don't worry, you'll never be in the dark.

When they're afraid of being alone and we say, don't worry, you'll never be alone. When they only eat certain things and we say, I'll make sure you always have that food you like wherever we go, we think it's loving. Turns out that that behavior on our part of accommodation can lead to this inability of the kid to cope in circumstances that are difficult. They have a lot of fear. What our over-accommodation has taught them is, hey, that thing you fear is so legitimate, I'm going to curate your environment so you never experience it. What we're supposed to do is empathize and empower. I can see that's hard for you. I'm here for you. Do you want to talk about it? Listen, listen, listen, empathize with

their feelings and then empower. Say, you know what? I know it's hard now, but I know it's not always going to be this hard. And you smile and you walk away. That's what we're supposed to do. So I have experienced that reality in my own life. I was that parent over-accommodating my kids' sensitivities, I would call them. I thought it was the loving thing to do. But now the evidence is increasingly clear. That short-term solution of, I can't handle my kids' sad feelings or feelings of discomfort or what have you, such that I will swoop in and handle, undermines his ability to handle for himself. So I am actively undoing that with great results. Now I'm able to look at my 22 year old when he's dealing with a difficulty

and instead of feeling responsible for sorting that difficulty out, I look at him like, wow, that looks like it's really tough. If you need my help, I'm here. But you know what, kid, you do hard things. And I smile and I walk away. And he comes back to me with this look on his face, like I do hard things, mom. I took care of that, you know, and I can see him building that agency, which leads to a degree of mental health and wellness we all long for. And those of us who have been jostled awake by our kids, depression, anxiety. We know we have to turn this around. And we who have seen it are motivated to stop the over-parenting. And so I do see so many people shifting, so many people saying, I'm not taking a chance with my kids' mental health. I don't need that outcome so badly for

them that I'm going to undermine their mental health and wellness. Something else that I've noticed, and I have no data to support this, but another contributor to this problem that I have seen is that I think parents are friendlier with their kids today than in previous generations. I mean, you know, I'll lie on the floor and watch TV with my kids, but my father would have never done that with me. I listen to the same music as my kids do that with me. I listen to the same music as my kids do, but I didn't listen to the same music that my parents listened to. That there's a blurring of the lines, that parents today are friendlier with their kids, and being friendlier,

you want to help them out, and it just, it seems like that contributes to the problem. It's a beautiful thing to picture you on the floor watching a show with your kid. I think anybody listening who's in their 40s and 50s can relate to how differently we are with our kids versus how our parents were with us, right? We've come out, we're long past the era of children should be seen and not heard. We're long past the era of children should be seen and not heard. We're long past the era of my way or the highway authoritarian parenting in the main. We do care and love in a way that is so evident and beautiful. There is a friendship and a friendliness and an awareness and a caretaking, right? We're so involved. Your parents probably couldn't remember

the name of any of your teachers. We know not just every teacher's name, but the homework that they've assigned, right? We know every other parent on the soccer team. We're just, we've created quite a presence for ourselves in the lives of children. And that has yielded so many positives. But yes, to your point, I think maybe we have swung a little too far. We need to go for that

friendly, present, loving connection. Connection is so good. It's such a protective factor against the world's ills. But we must never lose sight of the fact that our primary job is to make sure they can do more and more for themselves. So as we're sitting there watching the movie, we've got to then say, all right, kiddo, take care of the dishes, please. I'm going to go take out the trash, like invite them into the work of the household. Expect them to contribute by way of doing chores. Hold them accountable for the things they need to learn. Both are possible. Well, it's an important discussion about a topic that really didn't used to be a topic

a generation or two ago where people don't want to grow up or don't feel equipped to grow up. So it's really important to understand what's going on and what we can do. Julie Lithcott-Hames has been my guest and the name of her book is Your Turn to Be an Adult. And you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation

with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences,

career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks.

And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice.

Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong? And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. No matter where you live, there have been times when you have been stuck in traffic and wondered why, and wished you weren't.

I know I've thought about it, and I've wondered, for example, how does traffic on a multi-lane interstate highway, how does it just come to a stop all by itself? Unless there's an accident or something blocking the road, how in the world does traffic just stop and then sometimes miraculously just start up again? How does our driving behavior affect traffic patterns? If we drove better or if we drove differently, could we make traffic better? Or is it really just a matter of too many cars? These are some of the questions I want to ask Jonas Eliasson. He's an

internationally known expert on traffic patterns. He's director of transport accessibility for the Swedish Transport Administration and a visiting professor of transport systems. He also has an interesting TED talk about how to solve traffic problems. Hi, Jonas. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi. So I've always thought when I'm driving and all of a sudden everything slows down and maybe stops and there's a traffic jam, I kind of assume it's somebody's fault.

Somebody did something wrong. There's some jerk up there who screwed this up and now we're all stuck here. Some of the times, but not most of the time, there are jerks just sort of clogging up the streets. But most of the time, this is really a very sort of normal or standard behavior of flows. Traffic works in much the same ways as flows through a pipe. When you gather

enough sort of, from a physical point of view, random particles that move about and sort of interact with each other, what you get then is some kind of congestion. But the difference between flowing through a pipe, random things flowing through a pipe, and traffic on a highway is that there is behavior going on. People are doing things because this guy's in the wrong lane. This guy wants to go in that lane. Somebody's going too fast. Somebody's going too slow. Somebody's driving like a jerk.

So is it those behaviors that are causing the trouble? When you think about car cues that sort of just randomly occur on the freeway, more or less out of thin air, once you are sufficiently many cars on the same place, these are just sort of very, very small, essentially random disturbances that cause some driver to brake and some other driver to then catch up into the other driver and that one has to brake and then the other one speeds up and so on and these sort of micro disturbances which are really really small they quickly get amplified by the traffic patterns and it's because there are so many cars that there's no real margin

for error unlike say on a rural road where the cars may be, you know, a thousand feet away from each other, there's plenty of time to correct. Yeah, exactly like that. And then there is, of course, also congestion and crowding that are caused by things like incidents and cars breaking down or some accident is happening. And then there is also car queues that depend on some particular bottleneck, like a traffic signal not having enough capacity and things like that. But then on top of that, even if you have no bottlenecks and no incidents, then once you have enough traffic on one particular freeway, then you will still have

car queues sort of appearing out of thin air just because of these random variations in the flow. Do chronic traffic problems train drivers? And what I mean by that is, let's say in your town you have a traffic light that doesn't stay green long enough to let all the cars through. So consequently, the cars back up and back up and back up, and it becomes a real problem. So I would imagine that drivers over time see that and go, well, then that's not the way I want to go. I'm going to go find a different way to get where I'm going

that doesn't involve this traffic light. And so the problem kind of self-corrects because a lot of drivers go a different way. Yes, more or less. I mean, to a fairly large extent, people seem to be rather well informed and rather rational when it comes to driving behavior or travel behavior in general, for that matter. Sometimes people believe that if we just could get better information out to people, then carcass would disappear. This is typically not true. People are actually quite well informed about the best route to their particular destination, for example, or the best time of day to go, for example.

So in that sense, they are fairly rational and fairly well informed. So if there, for example, will be a traffic signal that doesn't work very well, then enough people will try another route the next day. If you, for example, increase capacity by adjusting or optimizing that particular traffic signal, that will also attract more drivers because they will, after a while, realize that here's a really well-working traffic signal. So they'll take that route instead. So what happens then is something that we call latent demand, that is people shifting from other routes over to this new, improved route. So after a while, you will tend to have the same congestion regardless. And isn't that exactly what happens when roadways are widened to add lanes and then people find out, well, there's new lanes, so let's get more cars over there because now there's new lanes and then everything slows down again.

Yes, yes, exactly like that, actually. So only increasing capacity when you have a road network that is already sort of filled up to capacity is almost pointless, at least in many situations. I mean, there are exceptions to this, but a lot of time. that if you improve one junction or one traffic signal or one particular lane, for example, then what happens is both that you shift people over from other roads, and it sometimes means that they can just get even faster to the next bottleneck and then arrive earlier to the next queue and haven't really gained anything. We mentioned before that every once in a while there's some jerk that does something, speeds through, cuts people off, that kind of thing. Do those people have any kind of real effect on the overall traffic? Or those are just like little random aberrations and the traffic fixes itself pretty quickly? They actually do. They actually disturb the traffic flow when people do it like

that. It's really only relevant when you are at what we call the critical capacity. When you are in the traffic flow that is almost causing a queue, then if people do like that, you know, cut queues and change lanes right in front of other people and so on, then you can switch from right below the critical capacity where traffic is actually flowing quite well to the other point of the critical capacity where queues start to form instead. When you already have a long car queue, then it actually doesn't matter so much.

And of course, if you don't have a congestion, it doesn't matter so much either. But when you are at this sort of critical point where things almost work well, then that kind of behavior is really disturbing. One of the things that I've always wondered about is those phantom traffic jams. And then you get to that point, you know, where you're on the brakes for 10 minutes, you're barely moving at all. And then all of a sudden, it opens up and there was nothing there. There's nothing there now. And all of a sudden, you can go zoom. Why? Why there? Why now? What happened? Yeah, so it usually starts with some kind of small, almost random disturbance in the traffic flow. It can be something as small as two cars getting too close to each other, so one has to brake.

And then when one car brakes, then the car behind that one will have to brake as well, and then the next car will have to brake, and so on. And that's what we call upstream propagation. This car queue becomes longer and longer and longer. And then even if the original disturbance goes away, then that car queue will still be there because it gets fed from upstream. New cars are then arriving towards the end of the queue. And as long as there are enough new cars coming into the end of the queue, then you will be there, despite that the original cause for the queue isn't there anymore.

So the point at which, you know, when you're in those phantom traffic jams and everything opens up, that point keeps moving backwards then, yes? Yes, exactly like that, exactly. I would imagine, and I imagine people like you do this, if you look at traffic from above, like from a helicopter, you can probably see a lot of really interesting things about how it flows. Yes, absolutely. And this is really interesting. So, I mean, if you ever get the chance to watch from a traffic control tower or something, you should really do this. And one thing that strikes you is that there are large areas of any given particular road that is actually empty because cars tend to bunch together. They form in long queues. But that also means that right before that queue, the road often actually seems rather empty. And this is because of the same phenomenon that when cars sort of bunch together, they are standing almost still in one

area, but then right in front of that queue, then the road can actually seem almost empty because, well, almost by definition, the cars which are in the queue can't get to the empty space on the road. Are there traffic jams because people expect traffic jams? And what I mean by that is if you drive to work every day and at this one particular spot every day, the traffic always slows down. Will it slow down even if the traffic doesn't require it to slow down just because the people who drive it every day are slowing down because they always slow down? Not so much, actually. There is usually something causing this, but these things can be really, really small. It can be something that the road turns slightly so you can't see so far ahead as you could earlier. Then people tend to slow down. And just this slowing down can be one of these sort of random disturbances which causes a queue.

There's also a big difference, for example, just when it becomes a little bit darker or if it rains or something like that, that will almost subconsciously mean that people are slowing down. And just slowing down a little bit can be that kind of small disturbance that means that the queue is formed. I'm curious, you would probably know this. Are there big differences in the way people drive, the driving behaviors of people differ from country to country, or are drivers drivers? Well, there is actually a fairly big difference between different countries' traffic cultures. And the easiest way to see that is actually the number of accidents,

because accidents is something that we can measure. Just looking at traffic patterns, you can almost see things as well. But there is a huge difference between different countries in terms of traffic accidents or traffic fatalities per driving kilometre, for example. And some of that difference is due to safer cars and safer roads and slower speeds and so on. But there is also a huge difference in driving culture, actually. There are countries where the cultural behavior when you drive is much more aggressive, for example, which tends to cause many more accidents than other countries where people tend to drive a little bit more careful. And which countries are which?

Well, maybe I shouldn't point fingers here. No, point fingers. No, go ahead, point fingers. Actually, Sweden happens to be one of those places where people actually drive rather carefully. We also tend to have very safe roads and very safe vehicles, but we actually have, for a very long time, going decades back, we've had this conscious effort to teach people when they take the driving license, for example,

to drive a little bit slower than they think that they should and to try to give way a little bit more often than they think. When I drive in the US, I seem to sort of observe the same things between if you're in the really big cities. There people tend to drive a little bit more aggressively than when you drive in the rural areas. This just happens to be, I should say, my own personal observation from driving in the US. But it seems to be borne out by the number of accidents per car kilometer. One thing I've noticed is how people will cooperate with other drivers unless they decide they don't want to. And then, you know, one guy wants to move over. He's in the wrong lane and he needs to get over there. And some people will let him in and And some people will just like take that

stance like, uh-uh, no, you're not coming in. And yet if the roles were reversed, you would want the guy to let you in. But sometimes people like, like getting on the freeway, you know, people are merging on the freeway and some people slow down, let the guy in and other people, they block him. And I thought, well, what, what's the point of that? It's a rather curious behavior, actually. Most of the time, we seem to be reacting on a sort of a tit-for-tat matter. That is, if we think that the other guy is actually, is done an honest mistake, for example, or he has some right to get in, then most people will let him in.

But then on the other hand, if we feel that someone is trying to jump the queue, for example, or has done some other sort of unfair thing, then people will have this sort of tendency to try to punish the other guy a little bit, not letting him in and so on. My own actually personal impression is that since it's so much harder to drive in a really complicated urban setting, then people tend to be a little bit more forgiving towards other people's mistakes if you are driving in a really complicated city, as opposed to if you're driving in a smaller town where people sort of expect everyone else to know where they are getting, which lane they

should be driving in, and so on. If you drive in well let's say new york or for that matter stockholm which is a reasonably large city then then people know that you know this time it was you that did that did mistake but next time it might be me so i might just as well forgive you something that that fascinates me about driving is how people are so impatient sometimes, and they'll take pretty big risks to pass you or make a big noise, blow their horn to go by you. And yet, 30 seconds later, you're both at the same stoplight up ahead. And they got nothing for their effort other than to probably waste gas and put their life at risk.

And yet people do that all the time. Yes, it's absolutely true. It's absolutely true. And I think we have this sort of psychological drive for instant gratification. It's the same kind of psychological mechanism that makes it so, so, so hard to not eat that piece of chocolate that you have in front of you, even if you're not particularly hungry for chocolate. But if you have chocolate in front of you, then this sort of urge for instant gratification is very, very strong. And it takes conscious effort not to sort of leap ahead and get that opportunity, that piece of chocolate or that your place in the car queue or something. So this sort of urge for, as I said, instant gratification or to get something without thinking.

I think that we're sort of hardwired psychologically to react in that way. Knowing what you know, and from looking at traffic from above, and are there things we could do better, that drivers could do better, that would help everyone? Or do we do pretty well the way it is? Well, things would definitely move better if we tried to sort of coordinate ourselves better, meaning not jumping car queues, not, you know, driving first really, really fast and then really, really slow and having to sort of panic brake and so on. So if we just sort of drive a little bit more, let's call it defensively, then things will work better. And then, of course, I mean, sometimes ask yourself, do I really need to go on this particular trip at this particular time at this particular route? Because, I mean, most of the trips that we do, they aren't really voluntary. Many things that we do, we have to do because we need to get to work on time and so on. But then there is this sort of fraction of trips that we make that we could ask ourselves, you know, could I

perhaps change my departure time to avoid contributing to the Jews? You know, when you're on the freeway and there's a sign and it says, you know, lane closed one mile ahead for construction and so people start to move over. Well, are you better to move over early or wait until the lane is you're just about to the closure and then move over and use up that lane until it does close? As long as the traffic is moving, then it's actually better to try to merge well ahead before the lane closes. Once you have a car queue, it doesn't really matter because once cars are standing still, then you have to merge and a car queue, it doesn't really matter because once cars are standing still, then you have to merge and the speed of that merge doesn't really matter really,

not anymore in a way. But as long as you are before that point, this so-called critical capacity, when traffic is still moving, then you're actually better off, at least as a collective, to try to merge while you're still driving rather than wait to the absolute last second and then create one of those, as I mentioned earlier, one of these small disturbances which tend to build up a few upstreams behind you. Is there anything about traffic that people don't seem to understand that you know from your experience and your studying this problem that you wish people had a better grip on well there might be two things actually one is that i think that people underestimate how much they could avoid cues by just shifting their departure time a relatively small bit i mean typically you would have severe congestions between say seven and nine or something like that but if you have real congestion between seven and nine then just you know arriving to Typically, you would have severe congestions between, say, 7 and 9 or something like that.

But if you have real congestion between 7 and 9, then just arriving to the same point, maybe 6.30 or even 6.45 or something, might be that congestion might be way better than between 7 and 9 or whatever times are applicable to your particular city. The other thing that I don't think that people are sort of aware of is how much of traffic that is not trips to and from work. Typically, things like, I mean, something like 25 or 30% of car traffic is trips to and from work. And obviously, it varies depending on the time of the day, for example. But that also means that there is an opportunity to change traffic patterns if people can do

all the other things that you do. I mean, go shopping or go to the cinema or go visit friends and so on and just shift the departure time or maybe shift the route to some other place than just at the particular time where so many people are getting to and from work. Well, for reasons that aren't really clear to me, I've always been fascinated by traffic

and what it does. And it's interesting to talk to somebody who studies it and has the real facts on why it does what it does. Jonas Eliasson has been my guest. He is an internationally known expert on traffic patterns, director of transport accessibility for the Swedish Transport Administration. And he has a TED Talk, an interesting TED Talk about how to solve traffic jams. And there's a link to that TED Talk in the show notes. Thanks, Jonas. Thank you very much.

It seems that just about everyone enjoys music. And that's a good thing because music turns out to be good for you. Hundreds of studies have been done on the effects of listening to music, and here's what some of those studies have discovered. Music can help with pain. No one's really sure why. It could just be a distraction from the pain, but whatever it is, it seems to help. Music can improve your immune system. Scientists explain that a particular type of music, which is specific to each person,

can create a positive and profound emotional experience, which leads to the secretion of immune-boosting hormones. Music can apparently help your memory and concentration. Children who have had musical training have better memories than children who don't. Hormones. Music can apparently help your memory and concentration. Children who have had musical training have better memories than children who don't. Music can help you sleep better. Many people who suffer from insomnia say music by Bach helps them sleep. Researchers have shown that just 45 minutes of relaxing music before bedtime can help you sleep better. And that is something you should know.

We are always looking to attract new listeners to this podcast. I bet you know some. I bet you know people who would love this podcast, who don't listen to it. And to get them to listen to it, all you have to do is tell them about it. Have them search Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, CastBox, wherever they listen. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana

community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn

between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show

to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.