About this episode

The episode discusses the complexities of social media's impact on youth and various related lawsuits and technological issues.

FOLLOW UP: This week, it seems America believes every complicated social problem can be fixed by asking, “Have you tried turning the internet off for the children?” Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation quietly notes that the science behind social media bans might not be as clear-cut as cable-news dads screaming about dopamine loops claim. Turns out, teen anxiety may also be linked to pandemics, school shootings, climate dread, and an economy that feels like a Fallout side quest. Meanwhile, Snap Inc. and YouTube settled another lawsuit accusing their apps of turning kids into doomscrolling goblins, Meta continues to insist social media addiction isn’t real while losing money in court, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed at a graduation speech after telling graduates to hop on the AI rocket ship without asking questions — exactly what a billionaire says when he already owns the rocket. In the news, Elon Musk lost another OpenAI lawsuit because apparently even juries have limits. SpaceX’s IPO revealed Musk plans to power AI with enough gas turbines to recreate 1890s London smog, and Grok officially became a disclosure liability after the whole “MechaHitler”…

People in this episode

Hosts: Jason DeFillippo, Brian Schulmeister, Dave Bittner

Topics covered

• social media
• teen anxiety
• technology
• lawsuits
• AI
• economy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Snap Inc., YouTube, Meta, Tesla, LinkedIn, Trump Mobile

Products: AI rocket ship, gold phone

Places: 1890s London, America

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