TRIGGERnometry - Why is Gen Z so Depressed and Anxious? - Freya India

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Freya India is a 23 year-old freelance writer who has written for publications such as the Spectator, the New Statesman and UnHerd. In her Substack, 'Girls', Freya writes about the lives of young women today, commentating on such things as atomisation, neoliberalism, sexual liberalism, technological dynamism and a deepening mental health crisis. Check out Freya's Substack here: https://freyaindia.substack.com/ Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube:  @xentricapc   Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 Intro  01:58 Who is Freya India? 03:07 Issues Facing Gen Z 04:40 Effects of Social Media 06:14 The ‘FaceTune’ App 10:28 The Core of the Mental Health Crisis 16:24 The Pandemic's Impact on Gen Z 17:26 Sponsor Message: Locals 18:28 Porn & Online Dating 22:49 Incel Culture 26:27 Ways We Can Help Gen Z 31:37 Why do Gen Z Share Similar Political Opinions? 39:58 The Breakdown of the Family 43:35 Modern Attitudes Toward Motherhood 46:52 The Influence of Andrew Tate 53:14 Is there an Attack on Traditional Femininity? 55:40 What’s the One Thing We’re Not Talking About? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In America between 2012 and 2019, the suicide rate for girls aged 10 to 14, it increased by 138%. Wow. I think it's something like 75% of girls posting or users posting on Instagram are using FaceChune. The actual app has become, like, the act of retouching your selfies has become feminist somehow. So pretending to look in a way that you don't actually look is now empowering. Yes, yeah. Is it? Is it?

Well, that's what all the celebrities say. I mean, Chloe Kardashian. She literally face-tuned her own newborn baby when it was born. And she calls it life-changing. Plastic surgeons are talking about this thing, Snapchat dysmorphia. Women used to come in with pictures of celebrities that they wanted to look like. But now they come in with pictures of themselves with a Snapchat filter on. So I think it's definitely, yeah, the result of social media creating unrealistic beauty expectations that are just kind of robotic. cyborgian look that you just can't replicate without filters. If you had a teenage child now, would you let them on social media?

No. I wouldn't either. No, I wouldn't. Alright, well, before we wrap up then, what do we do about all this? Hello, and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissin. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

Our fantastic guest today is a young writer who's going to shed some light onto whatever's going on with your young people today for India. Welcome to Trinomitri. Hi, thank you for having me. It's so great to have you on. I am a massive fan of your writing, I have to say, and you don't write a huge amount, but all your articles I've read and I thought this is someone is offering a new and different take on some of the issues that I actually don't get talked about. Plus, Francis and I are now both in our 40s, so we need a young person to tell us what's going on with young people. But before we do all that, tell us a little bit about you. Who are you, where you are? What's been your journey through life. So I graduated in 2020. I studied politics at uni. And during that first lockdown, I just

started to contribute to a couple of online magazines, so places like The Spectator, the New Statesman, the Independent. And initially, I was writing a lot about politics, social justice activism, that kind of thing. But I felt that I was getting a little bit caught up in what would get engagement, what was kind of trending at the time. So I wanted to take some time to think about what do I actually know and can actually give some value on? And at the same time, I was seeing headlines everywhere for Gen Z's, anxiety, epidemics, rise in depression, self-harm, suicide, that kind of thing. So I decided to make that my focus. And I'm currently working on a book, which is kind of a deep dive into girls and their mental health, and basically how we got into this

mental health crisis. And, I mean, one of the things you talked about, you talk about, you know, talk about a lot is young women in particular. Yeah. What's going on, right? Because we don't know. We keep seeing headlines, as you say, there is mental health crisis, you know, everyone's got climate anxiety, you know, I joke about it.

But you know what I mean. Like, what's going on with your generation? You sound so old, Mike. I am. You've got to embrace the oldness now, mate. But what is going on? Well, I think there is a mental health crisis. I generally do.

I think in the early 2010s, there was this spike in anxiety. depression, other things like eating disorders. And I think at the time a lot of people thought that's just nothing new. That's just kind of adolescence and coming of age. Like you, everyone feels a bit anxious, has body image issues at that time. But if you look into it, the self-harm and suicide rate was also going up at the same time. Massively. So like in America, between 2012 and 2019, the suicide rate for white middle-aged men increased by three

But for girls age 10 to 14, it increased by 138%. Wow. So it's beyond the normal experiences of adolescence, whatever's happening. But I think what's happening now is, you know, young people are having all of those age-old feelings of anxiety and body image issues, the normal stuff. But it's colliding with other things in modern life, like social media, consumerism, all of these things that are kind of ramping up. And I think it's taking those normal feelings and just exacerbating them to the absolute extremes.

138%. Yeah, yeah. That is absolutely terrifying and it's awful. Yeah. And how much of this can be blamed on social media, do you think? How much of it can be blamed on the consumerism? How much can be blamed on other factors as well? Well, social media is a bit hard because there's not actually like definitive evidence that it's social media.

So some studies show barely any effect of social media. Other studies show that it's a huge impact. But one thing Jonathan Haidt says, which I think is important, is that when they're looking at studies on social media, they often say screen time, which kind of lumps in texting and scrolling through Instagram, which has different mental health impacts. Like texting is not that bad for your mental health. So I think that's why it comes out as barely any impact. It depends who you're texting. Yes, that's true. So, yeah, so there's that.

So I think that it's difficult to definitively say, but I think if you look at the timeline, so mental health started to decline in the early 2010s, especially for girls. The iPhone came out in 2007. Instagram came out in 2010. You had editing apps like FaceTune came out in 2013. Snapchat was doing its AR filters in 2016.

So all around that time, these things were happening. And girls' mental health especially. was declining. So you can say it's things like the climate crisis or the economy that's affecting mental health, but why would it be girls and why would it be such a sudden decline at that time? And Frey, you used something, oh God, I'm sounding so old. The face moderating app? Yeah, face tune. So explain to people like me, they're very old, what is this app, what does it do, what is the purpose of it, and what are the effects on young girls?

So FaceTune isn't editing app, selfie retouching, they call it. And you can basically do anything on it. You can tan your skin, you can whiten your teeth, you can restructure your face. They've just introduced a new feature where you can, you kind of film yourself doing something like walking around a room. You can freeze the frame, edit your waist, so it's tiny. And then when you play the video, that will stay for the whole video and it looks like that's just your body. So the technology is just seamless now. you can't tell that it's been edited.

It's been downloaded like 60 million times, I think. And I think it's something like 75% of girls posting, or users posting on Instagram are using FaceTune. And the funny thing about FaceTune is that, you know, it used to be a bit of a secret among teenagers, like they would use it and they wouldn't want other people to know that they're using it. Whereas now it's kind of been rebranded in this whole feminism self-love thing. So FaceTunes marketing is very much.

about self-expression and girls self-love. So for example on International Women's Day, they posted something like selfie. Selfie editing is a powerful act of self-expression, and it was to celebrate feminism. So the actual app has become, like the act of touching, retouching your selfies has become feminist somehow. So pretending to look in a way that you don't actually look is now empowering. Yes. Yeah. It's completely changed. Well, that's what all this Celebrity say, I mean, Chloe Kardashian, she literally facetuned her own newborn baby when it was born. And she calls it life-changing. You've got, there's YouTubers online who, there's this guy, James Charles, who's got 23 million followers.

And he does this series where he gets like pre-teen, teen girls to send in selfies. And he will edit them. So he will give them like a nose job, contour them, put makeup on them. And all the while he's saying, oh, there's nothing, there's nothing wrong. wrong with fixing insecurities, you know, this is self-expression. And all of the comments are like, this is so educational, this is empowering. So it's really interesting to me that it's been completely rebranded. That's really interesting because before the only people could do that were the vogues of the world. Exactly. And they would take a celebrity and they would slimmed them down and trim their

waist and whatever else and then present an unrealistic representation of what that person looked like. Yeah. But now it's democratized it. Everyone can do it. Yeah, I think there was in the early 2000s like a backlash to the photo retouching in magazines. And, you know, we had growing mental health awareness since then. And I think corporations had to come up with an answer. And their answer is to continue profiting off of female insecurities, but now wrap it up in feminist packaging. But then there's also the flip side, which when we see morbidly obese people,

and particularly women, in Calvin Klein adverts. Now, I've got no problem with. a more realistic representation of what a woman's body looks like. I mean, mate, given the obesity crisis, that is what a woman's body looks like. Yeah, actually, I saw a lot of those pictures in New York, so you're right. But you just think what is going on when we just flip from too thin to endangering life? Well, both extremes endanger in life. Yeah, I think just in so many aspects of life, girls are just being lied to

and kind of manipulated in the marketing. I think a lot of things now are saying the opposite of what they are. So editing your face has become empowerment, self-expression. It's become a way to express how confident you are, which doesn't make any sense. And then other things like obesity, being healthy. And things like, you know, social media companies saying they want to connect to you. Feminists saying that it's, you know, liberating to sexualise yourself online. There's just so many different messages that I think are just lying to girls ultimately.

And, I mean, reading your articles, I get the sense that you're someone who thinks about these things quite deeply, actually. So at the core of it, what do you think is going on in society? Well, I think for the mental health crisis and for young people, I think, like I said, I think they're having age-old feelings that everyone has, the insecurity, the anxiety. And the things that are happening today, I don't think that modern life is just magnified. them. I think companies are tapping into them and exploiting them for profit. So I think when it comes to Gen Z, the worse our mental health gets, the more companies can sell us solutions to our stress and anxiety and insecurity, loneliness, whatever it is. And I think for girls today, there's stuck with this continuous conveyor belt of, you know,

apps and products and procedures that are going to make us feel better. But I think a lot of the time, they're just kind of superficial short-term solutions. You know, we're told if you feel insecure, you can get Botox. If you feel lonely, you can get friendships swiping up. If you feel anxious, you can download this therapy app. There's just something to fix everything for us. And I think that's why Gen Z are struggling and they're feeling so lost is because all of those normal emotions that you feel are being tapped into for profit.

And Freya, is that the reason why we've seen an explosion in plastic? surgery amongst young women. I see young women in their mid-20s and they've, you know, they've had work done, lip fillers. It seems a practically... I sound old, do I? That is true, man. But the lip filler thing, I just find horrifying. I know. I think that is the result of the New Yorker did a piece on it called Instagram Face, which is this idea that there's the kind of perfect female face, which is kind of like, it's basically Kim Kardashian. It's like the kind of ethnically ambiguous.

big lips, cheekbones, all contoured, everything. And I think girls have been exposed to that so much that they think that's the kind of ideal beauty standard. But the sad thing about it is it's not girls trying to look perfect anymore. It's girls trying to look perfect like a computer generated image or like the face-tuned version of Kim Kardashian. And I think girls are then trying to replicate that filtered face in real life, which requires a lot of Botox, fillers, everything like that.

Like plastic surgeons are talking about this thing, Snapchat dysmorphia, which is basically that women used to come in with pictures of celebrities that they wanted to look like, but now they come in with pictures of themselves with a Snapchat filter on or face tuned and say, make me look like that. So I think it's definitely, yeah, the result of social media creating unrealistic beauty expectations that are just kind of robotic, cyborgian look. that you just can't replicate without filters. And where does feminism come into all of this,

because you've written about this a fair bit, I take you're not a massive fan of it or some elements of it. Yeah, I'd say the... Well, I think it's become some of mainstream feminism. It's almost like hyper-sexualizing girls, kind of pandering to the male gaze, doing everything that women were trying to fight against, whether it's telling us that, you know,

it's empowering to, yeah, sexualize yourself online or edit yourself or hookup culture, whatever it is. I feel like it's all been placed under the umbrella of feminism and watered it down completely. And I think, yeah, girls are just being lied to about what is, you know, beneficial for them, what's going to be good for their mental health. And tell our audience, what is hookup culture? Because we've discussed it briefly with Louise Perry and a couple of others, but we've never really talked about in depth. What does that look like? Well, it's a bit difficult because kind of two things

are happening. There's this rising people having casual sex, but there's also a decline in sex in general. So Gen Z are having less sex than any generation before us at the same age. We're less likely to go on dates. We're less likely to have had a relationship. So it's not like it's kind of this crazy hookup culture that everyone's engaging in. But I think what is happening is you go on a dating app and you're basically competing in a market and you're looking for engagement and swipes just like you are on social media. And I think for girls to stand out in that market and to make sure that you're getting matches, it's almost like you feel you have to engage in casual sex or commodify yourself, objectify yourself online. So I think when I talk about hookup culture, I mean the pressure on

girls to engage in casual sex to get a relationship. I think that's definitely happening now, but it doesn't mean that we're having, you know, way more casual sex because we're not. And why aren't your generation having as much sex as previous generations? I think it's a mix of things. I think that obviously we spend more time on screens. So we are more cautious about going out and doing things in the real world, even just making friends. So something that's like a sexual encounter just seems really uncomfortable for people. And I also think Gen Z are just quite risk-averse about relationships in general. I mean, whether it's from, you know, dating apps or online porn or those things,

or whether it's just seeing our parents split up, you know, one in three, Gen Z see their parents split by the time they're 16. So I can see how we'd be a bit more cautious about dating and getting involved with. that. That's really sad. Yeah, it is really sad. Yeah. And the pandemic must have played a really, must have played its own part in this, surely. Yeah, I think all of these things were happening before. So the anxiety, the spending too long inside, all of that. So Jonathan Haidt said that teens were already socially distanced by 2019. So the pandemic didn't really make a big of an impact for that. But I think for girls, especially, the pandemic was really bad because

girls really depend on that face-to-face contact, whereas boys kind of, they bond through like side-to-side contact, stuff like shared activities like video gaming, for example. So they spent a lot of lockdown doing that, talking to their friends, gaming, whereas girls were just kind of passively scrolling through Instagram, comparing themselves to everybody else on their phone. And we saw this rise in school-aged girls having depressive episodes, girls being taken to emergency departments for their mental health. So I think, yeah, these things that were all happening before were just exacerbated by the pandemic.

And now, you know, we're even further back trying to solve them. And Farah, what impact is porn making upon your generation? I think it's a mix of things and they're different for girls and boys. So I think a lot of it for boys is that instant gratification thing. You know, they don't need to go out and be in an uncomfortable, conversation or try and win over a girl anymore because they've got it on their phone. So I think there's that. But I think for girls, it creates a lot of anxiety and paranoia about relationships. You know, I don't think it's normal to know that you're a partner or, you know, all of these boys

have access to, you know, infinite images of women all the time. I think that does play a part in girls' anxiety and maybe stress about relationships, attachment issues, that kind of thing. And I imagine there's also a thing about expectations, like what boys expect from their sexual partner. Yeah, and I think, you know, I think a lot of girls have grown up as well thinking that they need to be really sexual, that they need to be kind of like cold and detached. And that's how they're going to find a partner today. And the kind of feminists and celebrities are kind of enforcing that, saying, you know, it's empowering to be, yeah, just engaging in casual sex and kind of being provocative online, all of these things. And I think, you know, for some girls, I think, you know, for some girls,

that's okay. Some girls don't seem to be affected by that. But for a lot of girls, that does affect their sense of self-worth. There was a study in the Wall Street Journal, which showed that 60% of girls at an outpatient clinic for eating disorders, depression and anxiety, had posted sexualized content on TikTok. So, you know, for some girls, there is evidence that it really does mess with our, you know, anxiety, our sense of self-worth. Yeah, I can really see that. And also as well, does it make the, because the whole point, obviously, of sex is procreation, but it's also about connection between two partners. Does that mean that there's no, or there's a lack of connection there simply because people are just trying to recreate what they see on a screen? Yeah, I think romance in general has just been kind of commodified. I think that, you know, you go on like a dating app and it's like swiping through products and you're just, you know, you know, you go on like a dating app and it's like swiping through products and you. you're advertising yourself like a product.

You can filter through like you're looking in like a catalogue for something. And I think it's really kind of romance and intimacy is just entwined with consumer culture and it's taken out all of the feelings from it, all of the kind of excitement. And it's made it very cold and transactional. And I think a lot of girls struggle with that. And I think boys as well. You know, we've grown up on things like Instagram, you know, selling ourselves online, in marketing ourselves.

So for us, it seems normal. But when you kind of zoom out and think about it, an app like Tinder is really weird that you're advertising yourself, you're waiting for people to give you feedback, and you're tying yourself worth to things like super likes and how many chats you have. You know, it's clearly not good for mental health.

And is there like another way, I suppose? Because I imagine if you're saying, well, boys are like they're not going out, they're not going to approach a girl in a coffee shop or in a pub or whatever, as they might have done in the past, then I suppose someone like you, I don't know what your relationship status is, but if you're looking for a guy to come and approach you, but none of the guys will, then you can not be on Tinder if you want, but then no one's going to approach it. Yeah, exactly.

It's that thing again, you kind of forced to. And I think even things like, yeah, like the casual sex, the dating apps, if you want to meet someone, it's really difficult to not be part of that. I think it's easier for girls. I think for boys, it's becoming less, like, especially with the stuff like sexual harassment. You know, there's a lot of pressure on guys to get it right if they're going to go and approach a girl. But I think girls are kind of noticing it as well. There's less, you know, guys shooting their shot, I suppose. I think people are just so consuming things online, online content, and kind of convincing. convincing themselves, they can do it that way.

They're just never going to put, it's such an uncomfortable situation. Why would you put yourself in it when you can just DM someone on Instagram? And we're talking about this online culture. And then for boys, they have the insult community, which they're demonised actually, if I'm being quite honest. Where it's just basically men who have decided to drop out depression. We had William Costler on to talk about it. It was a brilliant interview.

Is there a similar equivalent for girls? the people who just don't want to take part in society and see this and think, you know what, I don't want anything to do with this, I'm out. Yeah, I think for girls, it's anxiety. You know, girls are driving the rise in anti-anxiety medication. We report having higher rates of anxiety, depression, eating disorders. So I think for us, there's this real kind of rise in neuroticism and worrying about things like relationships.

And, yeah, girls aren't going on dates. they're delaying things like their first relationship. And I think, you know, we don't have as many developmental experiences. We're spending a lot of time engaging with online content, staying inside. And so something like a relationship just seems like this huge, uncomfortable thing. It's a mission, as the kids say. And I think to them, it's almost not worth it. You know, they, for your generation, that would kind of be part of coming of age.

But I think, you know, we've got it all online. So, yeah, there's the incels for the boys who are, you know, they're not doing it because they don't want to approach a girl. But I think there's the girls who are just so anxious about the possibility of a relationship that they don't even want to go there. I mean, we're having a very sad conversation, if I'm going to be honest with you, because one of the things that strikes me about this is the instinct to find your partner or it's so strong in human beings, as it is in all animals, really.

So to be able to override that to the level that you're talking about, I mean, these are powerful forces that are at play here. Yeah, I think, well, Gen Z in general are just having far less experiences. So like when your generation was young, like my parents talk about being so excited to be independent, so excited to move out, get a driver's license. You know, Gen Z aren't driving. We're not getting part-time jobs.

We're not going on dates. moving out. So we're just taking much longer to reach those traditional milestones of growing up. But I think for girls, that's especially troubling because the more you delay those things, women are also delaying marriage and motherhood in record numbers. And we know that you've only got a short window of time to do that. And I think girls, everything is getting delayed. And it also creates a lot of different collisions. So for example, girls are now hitting puberty much earlier. So around age six, some girls, and they don't know why. Yes. Six. Six. Jesus Christ. They think it's either obesity, stress or chemicals or something like that.

But you've got that happening. So when you have early puberty, you're more at risk of anxiety, depression, all of those things anyway. And you're vulnerable to sexual harassment, predators, that kind of thing. But you've got that now with the delayed adulthood. So they don't have the developmental experiences to understand it or process it. And so I think we're in this really dangerous position where girls, they're kind of overexposed to all this adult content online. They're developing much earlier, so they're all the risks of that. But they don't have the life experience or the maturity to handle it. I think that is contributing to the mental health problems. So I guess the obvious question, given the sad conversation we're having so

far is what can we do as individuals, first of all, because we can talk about societal solutions and they also matter, of course. But at the end of the day, most people listening to this are thinking, well, what do I do? Or what do I do for my daughter or my son or whatever? Like, what can be done about this? I think, well, I wouldn't say, you know, I have all of the advice because, yeah, I'm not an expert in it. But I think realizing and recognizing what's going on is the most important thing. So I think, you know, there's a lot of well-intentioned parents who are letting their kids on TikTok for three hours a day thinking, oh, you know, my daughter's not going to view harmful content. She's not going to speak to predators or anything like that. But I think there's a lot of things

going on that are hard to see and measure. So the effect of social media on the development of your identity, on your sense of self-worth, you can't really see that. And I think, you know, the one thing parents can do is learn more about what TikTok is, what technologies their daughters is using, what kind of culture they're immersed in, what kind of content they consume and learning about it. If you had a teenage child now, would you let them on social media? No. I wouldn't either.

No, I wouldn't. And I think, but I think a lot of parents don't realize what, what it's actually doing. So I don't think, you know, they're to blame that they're letting them on social media. And also, it is their entire social world now. So you would be cutting them off from, you know, popularity and speaking to friends. But I think, you know, a lot of parents let their kids on social media and they do things like screen time restrictions, but they don't realize how tech savvy kids are. They can just get past it.

Like they can change the time on the phone. They can hack the Apple ID. They can, you know, if they want to view anorexia content on TikTok, they can spell the hashtag slightly wrong and bypass that. So I think for parents it's about. becoming as tech savvy as their kids. That's optimistic. Yeah.

Do you think this is where I am and this is probably where I'm starting to get more conservative as in ban this filth? Do you think that, and look, we disagree on this and we've had a discussion about it and I still stand by it. I don't understand why if you're under the age of 16 you need to be on social media. No.

We disagree on it? No, no, as in ban. I think you shouldn't be allowed. I think it should be a government. By law. Yeah. Well, the age now is 13. I don't know. That's too young. Tell me what do you think. No, I do think that's too young. I think it's something like a third of all TikTok users are thought to be 14 or younger. And so, you know, it's not just, I think some parents think, oh, it's, they might see something distressing or, yeah, a predator might talk to them.

But I think, you know, if you think how young 13, is your brain is literally forming. It's the most vulnerable years of your life and everything that happens to you kind of defines your identity as you move forward. And so I think when you think about it like that, you know, in the most vulnerable years of their life, they're seeing content that's not just, not just constant reels of content, but it's personalized to play on their unique fears and insecurities all of the time. And I think parents don't really realize that's what's going on. So, you know, if you're like a 12-year-old girl, who say you feel insecure about your nose,

you will get content on TikTok for rhinoplasty filters or editing apps or TikTok plastic surgeons. So it's very specific to the unique child. And I think that's unlike any kind of advertising we've ever had before. But I don't think parents, I don't think many parents realize how quickly your kind of algorithm can change to reflect things like your fears and insecure. even have to like the content. If you just hover over it, you'll get similar stuff all of the time.

And do you think that's part of the reason where we're seeing an explosion in gender dysphoria amongst young women? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, any kind of dysphoria, you can see how social media would exacerbate it because you're kind of splitting yourself into your real offline you and then this online persona all of the time. And you're also seeing a version of yourself refracted back by targeted ads and algorithms. And, you know, we're not just seeing the rise in gender dysphoria. It's also things like body dysmorphia, dissociative identity disorder, which is like the multiple identities, derealization, dissociation,

all of these things where girls describe feeling detached from their body and just separate from who they are. And I think that is because of social media. I think it's unnatural to have the real you and then the you that you're selling and performing for the market. And I'm not saying that that causes gender dysphoria, but I think if you already have those feelings, it would take them to the absolute extreme.

Yeah. A few days ago, I mean, it depends on how we released episodes, but we interviewed Matt Goodman recently. He does a lot of research on your generation in particular. And one of the things that I was curious to ask you about is when we asked him our final question, as we were we due, he said like watch out for this and Eric Kaufman's talked about this as well there's a big difference between girls and boys in Gen Z in terms of their political views yeah and girls are

moving way to the left whereas boys are you know boys are boys are they yeah well I don't know are they I I I still when I meet young men yeah they're still I still I still think of most of them was woke, to be honest. What's going on there? Do you have any thoughts? You don't have to have thoughts. No, yeah. I think that, you know, girls, I think for the average kind of Gen Z person,

especially a girl, that, you know, they want to be compassionate and tolerant. And I think there's a lot of people who think, oh, Gen Z just want to divide, you know, they're woke because they want to tear everything down. But I think if you take the average young girl, that's not why she's woke. She's woke because she's seeing all of this stuff. and being told that that's the moral way to be. And so she's going along with it because she wants to be a good person. I think, you know, we have to think about Gen Z as, you know, they're young,

but they're also, you know, they want to rebel against previous generations. They want to be more progressive. They want to do things differently. So I think that is all normal. And you can see why girls would go along with it because, you know, we're more likely to be agreeable, you know, that ties in with political. correctness. We're more risk-averse. So things like safetyism, coddling, you know, all of those things kind of play on our vulnerabilities. So I can see why young girls have those

opinions, but I think it's about giving them an alternative. Well, I agree completely, as you know, but why aren't you woke? Why are you? I don't know. No, I'm not. I think I'm just, I'm a bit shy in an overthinker and I think I spent a lot of time just observing people at uni, their different opinions and thinking about it. And I just sort of came to the conclusion there's sort of the woke left and the authentic left. The authentic left, you know, want to uphold human rights, regulate free markets, but they want to have freedom of speech. And then there's this new left that think that the way to do that is policing speech and, you know, focusing on this identity debates and the kind of intricacies of language. And I suppose I just thought that's probably not the

way to do it. But I also don't think that I'm unique in that. I do think there are a lot of Gen Z who are not woke. If you speak to, you know, the people that I know, I don't know anyone with opinions like that. And I'm from all over different backgrounds, not just from uni. And I think there's almost a caricature that all of Gen Z are extremely woke. We've all got these really, I don't think I'm some big exception. But obviously there's the vocal minority on Twitter. Yeah. The other thing that I've noticed with Gen Z is I compare it, so I'm sounding old again, so when I came of age, it was the 90s, it was Brit Pop, there was, you know, the music, there was a culture, there was a fashion, there was their hair, you know,

it was about going out, lads and ladets, drinking, getting messed up, taking as much drugs and drink as you can because that's how you had a good time, or that's what we believed at the time. I don't see a sort of a subculture or a culture within Gen Z that you'd, when you look back at the punks or, you know, rock and roll and all of these different things, or even emoes. I remember when I started teaching in mid to late naughties, there was the emoes and the emo bands and they had their own look. But I never really noticed that.

No. With young people, what's going on? I think it's, again, the social media algorithms and targeted ads. You know, you kind of, you end up consuming so much of the same content and being kind of, you know, you're targeted via gender age group, that kind of thing. So you've got young girls all being fed the same or similar stuff, constantly reinforcing how you should look, you know, how you could be more desirable,

attractive, productive, happier all of the time. And you're being served kind of templates for that. And I think people end up the same. So you have Instagram face, everyone starts looking the same. Everyone starts having the same ambitions. You know, most girls, something like 57% of Gen Z girls want to be influencers now. You know, you see even outfits.

Everyone's wearing the same outfit because the kind of same videos are getting pushed to all of us all of the time. And so I think there are the subcultures, but they're getting swallowed up by what the, you know, the companies want to push more of. And you end up becoming defined by, you know,

the stuff that comes up on your for you page and the content you consume. And so I think we're all becoming kind of similar in fashion sense and things like that. And is there a culture where you would go out to clubs and bars and watch bands and talk about new bands or music? Or is that kind of...

I love to smile on the face. This old man is talking about things that have never happened. Well, there is. But I think in general, Gen Zia just doing less, having less experiences. We're just less likely to go out and do things like this. And obviously, there's loads of people who are still doing stuff like that. But I think for the general kind of pre-teens, teenagers,

there's just not really the desire to go and do those things because you can get, you know, if you want a sense of community, you can get it online. If you want to find new friends, you can get them online. If you, you know, even things like influencers, with influences, you can kind of, you know, have that sense of connection from your bedroom. And they're using all of these kind of parasocial marketing tactics to get you to think that you're their friend. And you end up kind of intimately following the lives of these strangers, watching them go to, bands, them hang out with their friends. Join our locals, guys. Yeah, but I think young girls especially are doing that a lot and I think influencers tap into that kind of loneliness and anxiety and then they use it in their marketing. So they say things, you know, they call you your friend, they

show their intimate moments in their life so you feel like they're being real and vulnerable. But often they're just trying to sell you something or get engagement. So it's quite sad, really. Yeah, and it's not a real connection. No. communities, I mean, look, you know, people make friends online. I don't want to denigrate that or people meeting their partners online. But it's not like having a real group of friends, you know, it's not like having a family, it's not like meeting people, it's not, it's completely synthetic. Yeah, but you get sort of a quick hit of that sense of connection and you get like, you know, someone replies to a comment and they relate to you and they are going through the same thing or, yeah, if you feel like you're struggling with your mental health, you know, if you feel like you're struggling with your mental health, you you can go online and there's a community for that exact mental health problem, that exact issue you're going through. You know, it's very attractive for lonely, kind of awkward girls to want to, you know, find their connection that way. So I can see why people do it, but I think that kind of instant hit wears off. And in the end, it is just a superficial community.

And often those communities will drop you as soon as you don't meet, you know, what they're talking about if it's like, a social justice community, for example, if you change your mind, you're no longer going to be accepted. So I think young people... Like it was if you're an insult and you're like, oh, you know what, I've actually decided I like girls. Yeah, exactly. So I think part of helping Gen Z's mental health,

also the woke stuff is just getting them to engage with people and have more experiences. Because I think the more you do that, something like the woke worldview just falls apart because you realize that people from all different backgrounds, we've all got different traumas, we've all been through similar things, and the kind of idea that, you know, we're all in distinct identity groups. It just doesn't work when you go out and actually engage with the world.

So I think a lot of Gen Z's problems would be solved through more experiences. And one thing you alluded to earlier, which is something that we've talked to death on the show, but I still think it needs talking about is the breakdown of the family and the impact that has. Yeah. And that just seems to be accelerating and accelerating and accelerating and accelerating. Yeah. Yeah, well, I wrote an article about the glamorizing of divorce. Like, I'd seen everywhere, like the Guardian was talking about the joy of divorce parties. Yeah. Like Vogue was talking about this Valentine's Day, let's hear it for divorce. The New York Times called Divorce, a radical act of

self-love. So I was seeing all of this. I was also researching Gen Z's mental health crisis and reading through all of these reports. And all of the reports would talk about things. like the economy, the climate crisis, being reasons for Gen Z's anxiety, which just doesn't make sense to me. I don't think a 13-year-old cares more about the climate or the economy than if their parents are talking. I think a lot of it is closer to home. And I think there's this denial going on about it because, you know, we've got the most mentally ill generation on record and family breakdown is just barely mentioned, even though we know that having divorced parents leads to you're more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance abuse.

There was even a study that showed that it has parental divorce has more of a negative impact on educational attainment than parental death. So we know that it has a huge impact and yet it isn't factored into the mental health crisis. And why, sorry Francis, I just want to finish this point. Why do you think that is, Fred? Because I know that like in our day it was, you can't talk about the breakdown of the family because you're demonizing hardworking single moms. That's the argument, right? Is that still the argument or is there a different, or is it, or is being like, is every form of family, quote, unquote, they're all equally valid now. Is it? Yeah, I think it's a mix of things. I think, I think a lot of it is just this idea in modern life that everything should be fun

and easy all the time and any kind of responsibility is restrictive and inconvenient. And so I think a lot of parents kind of lived by that. They kind of were conditioned by society to think, you know, the ultimate freedom is your own happiness. I think for some marriages, obviously there's reasons for divorce, but I think that was also happening. And I think now we're seeing the consequences of that. And I think a lot of parents are still maybe in denial about the impact that it's had.

Because it was something like they asked children of divorce how it affected them. and parents, four out of five parents said that their children were fine with it, whereas literally 75% of the children had had things like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance abuse. It's a hard thing to admit, of course, especially if you felt that the divorce was, you know, important or necessary or it was genuinely, you know, people don't always, can't always keep it up, but it's just we've seen over the last 60, 70 years, that rate is skyrocketed in every Western society. I think it's too close to home for people.

because if you're talking about it, everyone knows someone who's gone through a divorce or their parents have. So it's really hard to talk about, and it's much easier to look at things like the financial crash or the climate. Whereas I think for young people, their world is their friends and family. It's who's close to them. And I think something like divorce makes much more sense to me why you would feel anxious than something far away like the climate crisis.

And what is your generation's attitude to me? motherhood. Do the girls still want to get married? Do they still believe in that married, you know, having two kids, a family? Or are they kind of more seeking careers and all that path? Yeah, well, I think it's half of women are now childless by their 30th birthday in England and Wales. And there's loads of reasons for that, obviously, you know, decline of religion, feminism. But I think there's been an attitude shift in Gen Z. Through my experiences, I don't know any women in their early 20s who are excited about motherhood who talk about it, who have it in their vision. I think we're either terrified of it or we don't want to or we're putting it off as long as

possible. Why are you terrified of it? I don't think I am. No, no, sorry. You said we are and I said you. Like, what's the source of that? It's that kind of message again from society that you should only pursue things that make you comfortable and happy. And I think we've kind of emphasized the personal discomfort of it, you know, everything you'll sacrifice. You know, we've grown up in societies with more comfort and convenience than ever before. So it makes sense that we would be more risk-averse about anything uncomfortable. Like if you go on child-free TikTok, it has like 780 million views and it's mostly girls, pretty much all girls, talking this against motherhood. You know, there's one that does a free birth control series where she just

shows you like the most horrifying aspects of motherhood, whether it's losing sleep or your child being sick on you, all of these things. And all of the comments are just like, they don't even understand why you'd ever do that because they just think, oh, it's all about personal discomfort. And to them, it seems puzzling why you would want to have children because it just gets in the way of that so much. But I think it's kind of sad because I think a lot of Gen Z will miss out or delay something meaningful for their own personal discomfort so they can live their best life. And I think it might backfire. Do you think it's part of the reason is a whole generation, which has essentially had their brains hacked to believe that instant gratification is the

best form of gratification. And children are not instantly gratifying a lot of the time. Yeah, I think, yeah, any of these meaningful things where you have to, your gratification is delayed, you have to compromise and sacrifice. I think as a whole, we find those things much more daunting. Because we've had comfort and convenience at our fingertips, you know, anything we want, we can kind of have much quicker than your generations did. You know, you'd have to, if you wanted to speak to a goal, you'd have to get the courage to do it. if you wanted to get a job, you'd have to get the courage to go in and ask about it. You know, all of these things have been made much more convenient, which is good. But then I think we've developed this irrational fear of things like discomfort and sacrifice.

And I think that's part of why we're seeing decline in motherhood marriage, because those things do come with compromise and discomfort. And we've seen the rise of Andrew Tate. And I've talked with a lot of people, and a lot of them, people have been my age or older about it and they talk about it. Why do you think he's become such a huge figure to young men and boys in particular? And what impact is that having amongst women of your generation? I think for boys, they're hearing the same messages over and over again,

which is obviously the kind of demonising masculinity, saying you need to become more sensitive. You need to be almost more like women in the way that you think about things and approach things. And I think, you know, men tend to just process their emotions differently and think about things differently. You know, it doesn't make us make them wrong. But I think now we're almost telling men that all of the ways they do it are toxic or too blunt or so they're trying to kind of become more feminine. And so I think someone like Andrew Tate comes along and he has a masculine approach to it, quite heavy-handed and a bit blunt. But I think for men, that's

appealing because it's the same with girls. You know, they're being lied to quite often and kind of convinced that there's something wrong with them. And then you have someone come along and say, oh, well, if you have these masculine traits, then it's a good thing. You can be strong. You can do this, whatever. So I can see why that's appealing. And I think, yeah, I think, yeah. Yeah, well, it makes sense. And I said it at the time, what I find very puzzling, although it's not puzzling. I think the answer is quite obvious. It's like, whenever, anyone comes along who taps into that frustration that young men feel about like this is how I am, but I'm being told that the way that I am is wrong, right? Whether it's a Jordan Peterson or an

Andrew tape, who I have my reservations about, no one ever goes, why is that? No one ever goes, like, why are I meant doing this? Yeah, what are they lacking? Exactly. They're filling a vacuum. Yeah, I don't know. I think, yeah, it's just, we hear the same messages over and over again. And when someone has something different to say, it's really appealing. And there's probably stuff within what he's saying that is useful that boys should be listening to, but we kind of need to listen as well and figure out what that is. I think Andrew Tate is a very good example of what happens when there are not enough healthy role models.

So someone who is as out there as he is will come along and hoover up their attention because no one else is speaking to that audience. And they give people guidelines to follow, like, he'll say, this is what you need to do to be a man. And then they've kind of got markers to check off, whereas, you know, we're living in these consumer cultures without the decline of religion and things like that. We don't have those set guidelines of how to come of age,

what gives us purpose, what we should be following. So when someone comes along and says, oh, this is how you live a happier life, things like that, then people are going to listen. And as well, when you think about the fact that the divorce rate is what it is, a lot of boys are growing up. There's no male figure in their household. They go to school.

Most of their teachers are women. They're surrounded by women. Education has become more and more feminized. So traditional male behavioral types of boisterousness, wanting to be physically active, actively looked down upon. Then someone comes in to give what, in their eyes, is a positive vision of masculinity. Why wouldn't they follow it?

Yeah, and I wrote a piece about how the kind of social justice activism, the culture today is very feminine in nature. So things like cancel culture, women are more likely to use indirect methods of aggression, like reputation, destruction, social exclusion. You know, we're more likely to be risk-averse. So safetyism is kind of parallels, you know, typical female behaviour. And I think a lot of this stuff that's happening in culture

is feminine in nature. And some boys and men don't feel like they fit into that. that's not how they would have society be. And it's not because they're wrong. And I think, yeah, so someone masculine comes along, it's very attractive to them because it probably aligns more with their traits than the culture now.

And the other thing that I find worrying is, so he's in prison, nobody knows if he's guilty or innocent. But people think, right, okay, that's it. The problem is dealt with. We've got rid of him. And I'm there thinking, well, no, the problem isn't dealt with because then somebody else is going to come along and tap into it. Yeah, maybe worse, yeah.

Exactly. Yeah, it's true. I think, yeah, like you said, there's a vacuum there. There's someone, they're filling a demand for something. So we need to figure out what that demand is for. And try and figure out what it is within that kind of ultra-masculine front that someone like Angie Tate has. What is it that they find attractive about that?

Because there is value in it. Surely there is if so many people are interested in it. Well, there's definitely value in it in the sense that if you're telling people to take – men, men, particularly to take responsibility, to pursue their dreams. These are things that a lot of men of your generation have never heard in their lives. They've never been encouraged. But then, you know, as I said, I think someone who says this, you certainly see your children once a year or whatever.

There's probably going in the wrong direction there. So that's why I say, healthy role models. And, you know, I think that's why Jordan Peterson actually became as big as he became because he was like, take responsibility. Here's some rules, you know. And I think that it's important for people like that to be coming through and giving positive visions of masculinity and for society to stop demonizing masculinity as well. Yeah, and I think that's what men respond to. They respond to the kind of pick yourself up and sort yourself out. Girls don't really respond to that in the same way.

You know, we need a different approach. And I think boys don't really have that in society. It's all about like you're doing fine, you know, relax, de-stress, take on less challenges. Whereas a lot of boys' mental health problems might come from the fact that they're not being pushed. Maybe they want to be pushed. They want to take on more challenges. So I think when someone comes along using that male approach is really appealing to them. Do you think that on the flip side of it, though, we also demonize traditional femininity as well to some extent.

I mean, my wife before she had our son, she was always working. And she's now with our son and not working nearly as much. And you start to see that actually it's probably quite hard being just like a mum. Yeah. I mean, my mom was a housewife all her life. all her life, she has actually a very interesting business now. But that was never really as much of an issue. She was not demonized for doing that.

Maybe also the culture that I come from as well, you know, in Russian culture, it was a bit different. But I think if you were to say to your mates, and I'm just hypothesizing, but I'm guessing, you know what, I just want to stay at home with the kids. You probably have quite a hard time of it. Yeah, they'd find that oppressive. Again, restrictive.

What if you chose it? Would that still be oppressive? Yeah, I think they would think, I've chosen it because I've been convinced, conditioned to think. By your husband or whatever. Yeah. Right. It's interesting because you've got the people kind of demonising masculinity, but then kind of encouraging girls to be more and more masculine,

like the becoming cold and detached in relationships so that you can find a partner that way through casual sex, then you won't get hurt, things like that. Even in working, we're more encouraged to be masculine, independent. So, you know, it's either one or the other, even masculine traits are good things or they're not. And it seems to be, yeah, both traditional femininity and masculinity are getting demonised in different ways. All right. Well, before we wrap up then, what do we do about all this? Well, I don't know.

I think for, like I said, for a lot of these issues, Gen Z needs to get out more and have more experiences. Because I think the more time on your screen is worse for your mental health. you've got that constant social comparison, the targeted ads and algorithms, and you're not experiencing life. And I think that plays into the woke stuff as well. You're just saying in the same online communities, getting served the same content.

And I don't think that's good for mental health. I don't think it's good for your development in general. So I think, yeah, that's the one thing that young people can do. Yeah. It's been an absolute pleasure. We always finish with the final question, which is always, what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that we really should be? I think it's girls' mental health. I think we are talking about it a lot,

but we need to be talking about it with more compassion. You know, these aren't problems that are just nothing new. I think that, you know, this crisis is the product of a lifetime of conditioning. I think that girls, we're the first generation of girls to be made to feel insecure, anxious, unwell all the time online to maximise profit and boost engagement. And I think, you know, people need to realise how girls are being manipulated and misled and the corporations that are cashing in on it. And I think for girls, it's about, you know, and for Gen Z in general, not punishing themselves for feeling anxious and depressed and all of these things. And rather than feeling anxious about what's wrong with them, feeling angry that they're growing up

in a world like this and that, yeah, corporations. capitalizing on it. And also taking action, I would suggest. I mean, being angry for the sake of it isn't going to change. Yeah, being angry and empowered to make a change in their own lives for their own mental health. Yeah. Well said, Freya, I really recommend everybody read your articles. I hope you keep writing on your substack, which I've been really enjoying. And I look forward to your book. Thank you. It's exciting times. We're going to ask you a couple of questions from our locals that only they will get to see. But for now, thank you so much. And thank you guys for watching and listening. we'll see you another brilliant episode like this one or Raw Show.

All of them go out at 7pm UK time. And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it's also available as a podcast, so you won't need to look at your screens. Take care and see you soon. Get off the phone and go in for a walk or something. Yeah, but make sure to listen to us. While you're walking.

Is the increase in teenage girls using mental health services evidence that we need more mental health services or is that evidence that such services are actually making things worse?