Kids Should Have a Driver's License Before a Smartphone
Have smartphones destroyed a generation?
That was the title of a viral essay by Dr. Jean Twenge in The Atlantic in 2017, which first catapulted her work into the spotlight. For years before The Anxious Generation, Dr. Twenge (who now collaborates with Jonathan Haidt) was raising the alarm about social media use and teen mental health. Now, Dr. Twenge has released clear guidelines for parents on how to manage the technology in their kids’ lives. In this episode, we interrogate the evidence linking anxiety and depression to social media use and hear about the non-negotiable solutions Dr. Twenge lays out in her new book, 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World.
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The New Digg Wants to Bring Back a Peaceful Internet
Roughly 20 years ago, Digg was known as the homepage of the internet. The social and news platform was so big that Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit, referred to it as “the enemy.” But things have changed, and this year, the site's original founder Kevin Rose teamed up with Ohanian to revamp and relaunch Digg.
Now, in this age of AI, the new Digg is betting on the long-term value of real human connection. Kevin Rose tells Henry his plans to make a social platform that might actually be good for humanity: from how Digg will authenticate a "heartbeat" behind its users, to its ambitions to pay moderators and become a “living breathing social Substack.”
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You Can (And Should) Change Your Personality
Certain personality traits can determine how happy you are, sometimes more than income and IQ. That’s according to author and journalist Olga Khazan. Hoping to shed some of her more neurotic personality traits, Khazan recently set out to change her personality for the better… and succeeded. Today, Khazan tells us how. Plus: we hear about another recent discovery — why Khazan thinks she might be “doomed to be a tradwife.”
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The U.S. Needs a Democracy Movement
Anne Applebaum is an award-winning historian and journalist who studies democracy and dictatorship. Her latest book, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, explores how autocracies are working together to undermine democracy across the globe. Fortunately, Applebaum also considers how democracies can maintain their power against the siege of authoritarianism. Today, why is democracy worth fighting for and how can it be protected in the U.S? Plus: Poland as a guide for how to reverse years of democratic backsliding.
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How Mark Cuban Wants to Fix Healthcare
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban has set out to fix the broken U.S. healthcare system, and he’s starting with drug prices. In 2022, Cuban launched the online pharmacy Cost Plus Drugs, which aims to sell generic drugs at huge discounts. He explains the business, how it’s going, and why expensive hospital visits are next on his list. Plus, we get his takes on sports gambling, Silicon Valley’s turn to the right, and AI.
Note: this episode was recorded before President Trump announced TrumpRx. On X, Cuban gave it a B.
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We hear enough about our problems. Let’s solve them. Every Monday, journalist, analyst and entrepreneur Henry Blodget interviews leading thinkers across business, tech, politics and beyond about their big ideas for how to build a better future. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
México