Gen Z Tech Addiction Crisis with Oprah and Adam Alter

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@Oprah?sub_confirmation=1 Oprah is joined by a live audience in New York City for an in-depth look at the crisis of tech addiction among Gen Z. Millions of young people ages 13 to 28 struggle to separate themselves from the many addictive digital experiences from social media, video games to adult content. Oprah is joined by Adam Alter, a professor of marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business and author of Irresistible The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. Also joining this important conversation are Dr. Kaitlyn Regehr, author of Smartphone Nation: Building Digital Boundaries When Offline Isn't an Option and Dr. Christina Brezing, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University. Additional guests include Conor McLaren and Alex Slater, co-founders of “Quittr” - an app designed to help people struggling with an addiction to online adult content. We also hear from several young guests who are struggling with addictions to video games and adult content. BUY THE BOOKS! Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked https://amzn.to/4w2ONAK Smartphone Nation: Building Digital Boundaries When Offline Isn't an Option https://amzn.to/3RqsfvI 00:00:00 - Tech addiction is a crisis 00:01:33 - Adam Alter, author of Irresistible 00:03:06 - Kaitlyn Regehr, author of Smartphone Nation 00:04:00 - Hate, Harm & Disinformation Is Algorithmically Prioritized 00:06:28 - Christina Brezing on Tech Addiction 00:08:54 - Nisha’s Son & Video Game Addiction 00:13:12 - What Can Parents Do? 00:17:18 - Maddie & Kyle – Adult Content Addiction 00:23:34 - Will AI Make It Worse? 00:24:31 - Conner & Alex – Quittr App 00:28:00 - Impact on Sex Lives 00:36:19 - A Generation Unsocialized Learn More About the Quittr App: https://quittrapp.com/oprah Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi, everybody. I'm happy to welcome you to the Oprah Podcast. We're in New York with a live audience of our listeners.

• 0:41Oprah Winfrey?

  So great to be with you all here. And we know the world is changing at the speed of light. Every day, we're grappling with a new disruption or cultural shift we've never faced before. So one of my intentions is to have meaningful conversations about the impact all this has on our real lives. Lots of people say, oh, I'm addicted to my phone. How many of you have ever said that? I'm addicted to my phone. Well, anyone who has a member of Gen Z in their life, that's roughly between the ages of 13 to 28, knows that tech addiction is becoming a real crisis. Hear me clearly now.

• 1:24Oprah Winfrey?

  That is for millions of families. I'm very much aware of the toll that this is taking on parents because two members of my own team are now struggling with their sons as we speak. One of them had to have her son, her 19-year-old son, removed from their home because when she tried to get him off of her phone, he started hitting her. So the obsession has reached a breaking point for a lot of people. So let's dive right into this. Adam Alter is a research psychologist and professor. Hi, Adam.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 2:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Of marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business. And his New York Times bestseller is called Irresistible. The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. Welcome, Professor Alter. So how bad is it? How bad is it out there?

• 2:18Speaker 02

  It's pretty bad. It's bad in at least two respects. One is that it affects a huge number of people, as you said, millions. The Surgeon General report suggested that about 95% of teens between 13 and 17 are glued to their phones, usually using smartphones for social media purposes. And, you know, the effects also are grave. For a lot of people, it means their social interactions are ruined or harmed greatly. They struggle to do work. They have issues within their families. And it's not just about 13 to 17-year-olds. We're talking about young adults and older adults as well. So it's a pretty serious problem that affects a lot of people, and the effects are pretty grave as well.

• 2:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Are pretty grave. I mean, when I just described, one of my producers was sharing with me that she had to take her son out of the home, and he's now in some kind of rehab program. They realized that he was not attending classes. He wasn't, you know, going to school. He wasn't doing anything except gaming on his phone.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you hear this story, you know, writ large times a million or millions. You know, it's a very common story these days.

• 3:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Dr. Caitlin Riguerre is an associate professor and program director of digital humanities at the University College of London. Her upcoming book is called Smartphone Nation. Caitlin, what do you want parents in Gen Z to know about what's going on?

• 3:41Speaker 03

  So I come from a tech perspective. I research how the tech works, okay?

• 3:48Speaker 03

  I start with the premise that almost everything else we consume is regulated. The food we eat, the medication we take, the cars we drive. We have consumer protections around these things. We don't have the same consumer protections around the digital space because we're not the consumers of tech.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  We're the product. Or rather, our time and attention is the product which is being sold to advertisers. And what my research looks at is the way in which, through this attention economy, hate, harm, and disinformation is often algorithmically prioritized.

• 4:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Hate, harm, and disinformation.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  Because it is more attention-grabbing.

• 4:34Oprah Winfrey?

  So we're being programmed, we're being fed that, we're being conditioned, and most people don't even know it.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  That's right. And so what I do is I develop tools so that we can step away from being a passive product that just consumes into being an active participant. And that's something we all can do. We can be much more intentional with our usage.

• 4:56Oprah Winfrey?

  We can be. I heard you got interested when you read that Steve Jobs and a lot of other people who were responsible for where we are in the culture with technology don't let their own kids use it.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I found that absolutely striking. It violates a very basic rule in business that, you know, if you're the executive from Coca-Cola or McDonald's or any other company, it's assumed that you probably consume that product as well. That's how you demonstrate that you stand behind whatever that product is. And here you see this one case where there's this massive departure from that rule, that a lot of the tech titans, even for the last 15 or 20 years, have been very purposeful about keeping those same products that they say publicly we should all be using out of their homes. So they won't let their kids use the same products that we all are, not only letting our kids use, but we've been encouraged to let our kids use.

• 5:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Say again, Kate, Linda, we're being programmed for harm.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  So the reason is, is that disinformation is often more attention-grabbing than truth.

• 5:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Of course, yes.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  And harm, or things that hook into our most vulnerable points, will often hold us there just a little bit longer. And that harm will be different for every person in this audience, right? We might think about the fact that we live in information silos. We might think about the fact that we were never meant to look at our faces or our bodies as much as we do. We might think about the way in which it has changed sex and relationships. But ultimately, the thing that links all of these problems together is an unethical attention economy that is seeking to hold us at any cost. And that's where this problem sits. And so what I want to encourage us to do is be aware of this structure

• 6:42Speaker 03

  and then start to intercept it. Start to game your algorithm. Start to take control.

• 6:49Oprah Winfrey?

  OK, I want to also bring in Dr. Christina Breezing is an assistant professor of psychiatry in the Division of Substance Use Disorders at Columbia University and a research scientist at New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Breezing, what is happening in the brains of young people who are addicted to tech? What's actually going on in the brain?

• 7:11Speaker 04

  So, technology addiction is a behavioral addiction. And behavioral addictions have the same brain changes and clinical symptoms as addictions to drugs or alcohol. The hallmark brain change of an addiction is a desensitization to the release of dopamine in response to a reward. And so essentially, what happens is, as a result of that, we develop something called tolerance, which means the same reward doesn't give that same pleasure, doesn't give that same reinforcing effect.

• 7:40Oprah Winfrey?

  It's like the same hit of coke, you need more coke.

• 7:43Speaker 04

  Exactly, exactly. And so as a consequence, you spend more time seeking that rewarding, pleasurable experience. And as a result of spending more time, say, in the case of a tech addiction, on your phone, you're spending less time in meaningful relationships. You're spending less time focused on your schoolwork. You're spending less time thinking about work.

• 8:02Oprah Winfrey?

  So what is the dopamine hit you're getting from the phone? What is it, what are you getting?

• 8:07Speaker 04

  You... So dopamine is released in the brain in a way that creates pleasure. It feels good. People like to feel good.

• 8:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 8:14Speaker 04

  And so when you start feeling good, you spend a lot of time. It outcompetes other important things. If it's tech addiction, it could be gaming.

• 8:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 8:22Speaker 04

  So people could be getting to the next level of a game. Games are designed to make things rewarding in a very particular way. They usually use intermittent reinforcing rewards so that you can't expect when you're going to get it. Get the hit of dopamine, which tends to be more reinforcing. Social media is designed to get likes and have social engagement. That tends to be more rewarding. And then adult content creates high-level arousal and emotionality and large hits of dopamine.

• 8:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, we're going to get to adult content later. But that allows you to, even though you get aroused, I think you then need more intense arousal, right?

• 9:00Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 9:00Oprah Winfrey?

  More intense things to happen.

• 9:01Speaker 04

  Correct, because essentially that desensitization is what leads to the need for more intense experiences in order to have that same rewarding, pleasurable sensation in the body and in the brain.

• 9:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Whoa. Thank you all for joining the Oprah Podcast. When we come back, we're going to hear from a mother who is deeply concerned about her 23-year-old son's gaming addiction. Welcome back to the Oprah Podcast. We're talking with experts and members of Gen Z about this growing crisis of tech addiction. So you were talking about gaming. Dr. Nisha and her son Amir are here. And tell us what's been going on, Dr. Nisha.

• 9:39Speaker 05

  Hi, thanks for having me. So my name is Dr. Nisha Glenn. This is my son Amir Jenkins. And I am going to just share my experience as being a mother to a gamer. I first bought Amir his first game, I would say maybe about five or six years old. And at that time, I did not think that it would turn into an addiction. Because I'm so used to playing games growing up, Nintendo, Atari. But you got to keep in mind, he's a different Gen Z. I'm different. So we went outside, we played when the streetlights and everything was up. So he started his gaming at about five or six. And then I noticed I bought him his first game, the PlayStation one when it came out. And I noticed like nine and 10, he was definitely playing the game.

• 10:22Speaker 05

  And as time continued to go on, when he got in high school, that's when I knew it was an addiction. One time, he was in his room playing his game, which is the game called Fortnite. Oh my God, Fortnite has taken so much of my money. So he was in his room playing Fortnite and I heard him screaming and cussing and everything. I'm like, who are you talking to? He's like, I'm already with some people at the game because I lost and all this. They going back and forth. And about 20 minutes later, there are four guys at my door. They had came to my house to fight him because, I guess they lost, I'm not really sure, but come to find out they were guys that actually went to his school. So I then had to contact the school and let them know what was going on

• 11:04Speaker 05

  because at this point, I'm noticing this addiction is getting violent. Throughout this addiction, I noticed Amir would get up in the mornings. He would not brush his teeth. He would not eat. Ew. It was strictly. Amir. I mean, nothing, no, no, no showers. I'm just keeping it real, I'm just being honest. In there on the game 24 hours a day. So I noticed it affecting his education. I noticed sometimes when I would take the game, I would wake up in the middle of the night. He's in there at 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock in the morning, playing the game, screaming. And I'm like, who are you talking to? So it's really bad right now. And he's 23 years old and I still experience a lot of the same things. He's now taking showers.

• 11:48Speaker 05

  He's now eating a little bit more. Brushed his teeth this morning, so good. So, but it's still bad. And I'm like, I don't want my son to be 30 years old having an addiction to games.

• 11:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Do you think you have an addiction?

• 12:02Speaker 06

  I would say I've gotten a lot better with it.

• 12:04Oprah Winfrey?

  What does that really mean, Amir?

• 12:06Speaker 06

  Um, I would say, I don't have the urge to constantly be on the game, but I feel the urge to, you know, play the game excessively long. Now I don't play it as long as I used to.

• 12:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. So do you have a, do you have a life? Do you work? Do you go to school?

• 12:25Speaker 06

  I go to school and I work full-time as well.

• 12:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, okay. So you're not on it all of the time?

• 12:32Speaker 06

  No.

• 12:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Can you take us to the point of understanding what that feels like? When you're sort of caught up in the obsessiveness, obsession of it?

• 12:42Speaker 06

  I would say you almost forget where you are in a sense. Like when I play the game, I literally forget. I'm in a house sometimes. It's so virtual, so intimate and, you know.

• 12:56Speaker 06

  It's free, judge-free zone as well.

• 12:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Mm-hmm. You've done extensive research on games. Anne, what do you want to say about this?

• 13:04Speaker 02

  It's very, very hard to resist. You know, you basically think of it as you're going fishing for people's attention. And if you're, you've got the hook and the line, and you're basically trying to build as many lures onto the line as you can. And when you're designing a product like this, you can't do it in a way that's foolproof, where you know for sure it's going to succeed. But you can build in as many of these hooks as you can. Things like variable reward, which is what happens when you play a slot machine, or the goals that you get for passing a level, or the social connection you get with a lot of these games, because they involve other people. And so when you build all of these features into the game, you raise the chance that the game's going to be hard to resist. And so this is a very common story. It is very, very difficult to stop playing once you begin.

• 13:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, Dr. Reher, we're not going back in time. I mean, young adults are going to have smartphones. So what are parents supposed to do?

• 13:55Speaker 03

  So, Amir, you're in what I would call an echo chamber, right? So an echo chamber is when we continuously microdose on a certain type of content so that the behavior or the belief becomes normalized for us. And echo chambers are playing out across this country, whether it's around politics, whether it was around niche ideas, or whether it was around behaviors online. So what do we do about that? How do we have these conversations? What I tend to say is if someone in your life is in an echo chamber, instead of debating them on the minutia of that echo chamber in your home or at the Thanksgiving table

• 14:39Speaker 03

  with Uncle such-and-such who believes this, step away from the actual detail and look at the technological processes at play together. Look at the technology that is feeding this addiction, that is feeding this belief, and then together decide that you want to push back against it. Because you have the power to do that. And then we break open-

• 15:03Oprah Winfrey?

  How are you going to do that when that's not what he wants to do? How are you going to do that?

• 15:07Speaker 03

  Because we start to talk about the addictive quality of these technological processes and make it us against that technology. Instead of us being against each other, we are all in this together.

• 15:23Speaker 05

  Thank you. I do have a question. I remember you stated that they're considered products and not consumers.

• 15:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 15:31Speaker 05

  And I was telling him about and wanted to share the story. Whoever comes up and designed these games are genius. Because at one point, we spent all of our money on PlayStations. They made it so now convenient to where now he's playing on a PC. So it's easy access now. We're not spending as much money. So that's my thing, that they're making it even more accessible for kids.

• 16:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Dr. Breezing, there is a treatment, though, for this, right?

• 16:05Speaker 04

  There are treatments for behavioral addictions.

• 16:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Going through this.

• 16:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, so there are treatments for behavioral addictions. The first treatment is looking at psychotherapies. Things like cognitive behavioral therapy. And in the case of Amir, you may want to think about motivational interviewing. Basically, it's a type of therapy that meets people where they're at, thinks about what your motivation might be to change this behavior, and works you towards coming up with a plan to get you ready, willing, and able to take action.

• 16:32Oprah Winfrey?

  But isn't it like every addiction, the person has to be willing themselves? Not just your parents, or not just your person in school, or not just... That person has to say, "I have a problem, and I want to now fix this," right?

• 16:47Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And so, at this point, Amir, you'd have to assess where your motivation is at to get to a place where you do exactly what Ms. Winfrey just said, which is that I'm ready to make a change and then start implementing a plan to do so. The other thing to think about is that there are medications, off-label medications, that have been effective in alcohol use disorders and for opioid use disorders that work in certain kinds of behavioral addiction, like naltrexone. And then, in addition to that, you may... Addictions tend to have common co-occurring psychiatric diagnoses. And it makes sense to get an evaluation to see if you might struggle from depression. Some of the symptoms that you're describing have a lot of overlap with that. Anxiety disorders, like social phobia or generalized anxiety,

• 17:31Speaker 04

  can sometimes overlap with addictions in addition to other impulse control disorders, ADHD, psychotic disorders. So getting evaluated for that and getting treatment can actually help with the behavioral addiction if there's a component of that to it.

• 17:45Oprah Winfrey?

  That's a mouthful.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 17:48Oprah Winfrey?

  I know, because he's just going, "I'm not psychotic."

• 17:51Speaker 04

  He might not be, no.

• 17:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 17:53Speaker 04

  But some people are.

• 17:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 17:54Speaker 04

  And some people are.

• 17:55Oprah Winfrey?

  I hear you. I hear that. Thank you for listening. Next, we hear from a young wife and mother who says her husband's addiction to online adult content has reached a breaking point and is threatening their marriage.

• 18:10Speaker 07

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• 18:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Welcome back to the Oprah Podcast. Thank you for joining me for this timely conversation about how addiction to gaming and online adult content and other tech is destroying the lives of millions of teens and young adults. Maddie and Kyle are married, and they are the parents of two young children. They wanted to share their story with us in the hope that it will help some of you who are watching or listening. So let's first watch a short video, a few clips from their social media. You'll hear them use the word "corn" instead of the real word for these videos, so it won't be flagged by the platform and taken down. So let's take a look.

• 19:17Speaker 08

  I was exposed to corn at the age of eight and have struggled with an addiction for the past 20 years.

• 19:23Speaker 09

  I'm married to a corn addict. He has struggled since he was eight years old. I make it like my mission to watch his every move, which is so draining. When we were first married, I was super confused, like, why he didn't want to be intimate all the time. I was like... Don't guys wanna like do it all the time?

• 19:41Speaker 08

  For the longest time in my addiction, I felt alone. I felt ashamed keeping it a secret from family, friends, loved ones, my spouse.

• 19:53Speaker 09

  My heart breaks for like younger Maddie like years ago that thought like that I wasn't enough. Addiction is a super tricky subject and I'm still learning more about it. But I promise you, it has nothing to do with you.

• 20:14Speaker 08

  I wanna share my story with others so they don't feel alone in this.

• 20:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Maddie and Kyle, thank you for being here. I know this is a hard thing to talk about and I applaud your courage in being willing to speak about it. Because I hear this is really serious for a lot of people, like millions and millions of guys throughout the country and the world. And what was surprising to me, I remember doing shows about this years ago when I was, you know, doing a daily show. What's surprising to me is that you became addicted or exposed so young. So what was going on that you were eight years old?

• 20:58Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 20:58Oprah Winfrey?

  And you come across the corn?

• 21:00Speaker 08

  Yeah, so yeah, I got exposed to it when I was eight. It was on my family's computer. My stepdad at the time had it on there. And I just came across it and like it drew me to it. So I just kept going back and looking at it.

• 21:18Oprah Winfrey?

  And it became your go-to for everything?

• 21:21Speaker 08

  Yeah, like unintentionally. My mom was diagnosed with leukemia when I was really young and she got really sick there for a while. And so unbeknownst to me, I was turning to it to cover up my fear, my anxiety. I felt that I needed to be the old, I was the older sibling, so I had to be strong for my younger siblings. And so I wasn't expressing, you know, my fear with that. So I was just turning to a corn for that release.

• 21:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And so, when you met Maddie, you all ended up getting married. Did you ever tell her that you had this as an issue?

• 21:58Speaker 08

  In the beginning, when we were dating, I had mentioned. Well, she asked if I had an issue with it. And I said, "Yeah, I viewed it in the past, but I have it under control now." So I was lying to her about it.

• 22:09Oprah Winfrey?

  You were lying, yeah. You were lying. When did you realize, Maddie, that it was an addiction and not what people always say about this, that all men watch it?

• 22:19Speaker 09

  Yeah, I hate when people say that because like, even if he was just watching it sometimes in our marriage, I wouldn't be okay with that. But a month in, I found stuff on his phone and I like broke down. I was like, "What is this?" And that's when he broke down and was like, "I have a problem." And so, I definitely felt blindsided because we had talked about it before. And so, it was kind of shocking to me, but that's when I found out, it was like a month in.

• 22:49Oprah Winfrey?

  So you were trying to hide it from her?

• 22:52Speaker 08

  Yeah, I was viewing it behind her back and just not telling her.

• 22:56Oprah Winfrey?

  So Maddie, you've said that you're not sure your marriage will survive this. Why?

• 23:02Oprah Winfrey?

  What do you want to say to the partners and to the family members of people who are struggling with this like you are?

• 23:08Speaker 09

  Yeah, there's been many times that I felt that we can't make it through because the lies and like the betrayal that come from finding out he was lying. But I do know lots of the time he was in denial himself and didn't want to admit that it was a bigger issue. So there is hope, I would say, for the partners of addicts going through this to know that as much as this addiction makes it feel like it is your problem, like it is because you're not enough, it is because you're not a certain way. That is not the case. It took me so many years to learn that.

• 23:46Oprah Winfrey?

  How long have you all been married?

• 23:47Speaker 09

  We've been married six and a half years. So I would say like the last year is when I finally realized that like this addiction is so much deeper. It's something that he's used as an unhealthy coping mechanism since he was eight years old. Like it started long before he knew me. And I'm like, how many times do I try to break a bad habit and I have to start over? And this is an addiction. So when you step back and look at why they're using that to cope, it makes it easier to have compassion and understand that you are enough. And this is something that you guys can get through together as long as he's willing and wants to.

• 24:23Oprah Winfrey?

  And you are willing?

• 24:24Speaker 08

  Oh, absolutely.

• 24:25Speaker 09

  He is now.

• 24:26Oprah Winfrey?

  He is now.

• 24:27Speaker 09

  But I will say you were like, you can't force an addict. The first couple of years, I was like, you're doing this, you know? And it took, I don't know, a couple of years for him to really want to do it himself.

• 24:38Oprah Winfrey?

  And why is that? Why is that, Kyle? Because you thought you weren't that bad, you were like a mirror, like you're like, you've got it under control.

• 24:46Speaker 08

  Yeah, I mean, I was in denial about it. And then there's still that, as far as the addict aspect of it, like I wanted it still. I wanted to have that. And, you know, you give up so much control to an addiction and you want as much control over other things as possible. So your free will or your choice on that is kind of what was the driving force for a while that kept me from being in recovery.

• 25:08Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm wondering, is AI going to make this worse?

• 25:12Speaker 02

  I think so. I think it's going to do two things that are damaging. One is you don't need actors because you have AI. And so it's a bottomless pool of information that you have at your disposal. And so there's just more content available. The other thing is AI is very good at learning what you like and what's interesting to you and making things that are tailored to your preferences. So I think it's going to be weaponized in that way through AI. And that's, I think, a very big concern.

• 25:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, yeah, I remember doing a special and I was talking to Bill Gates about this

• 25:43Oprah Winfrey?

  and to Sam Altman. I think, I mean, people are going to be falling in love with their AI. Yeah, they are, they are. They're gonna wanna marry them, they're gonna wanna fall in love with them, they're gonna be buying them presents and all that stuff. It's, it's gonna get bad.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 25:58Oprah Winfrey?

  I think, and you think it's gonna get bad?

• 26:00Speaker 02

  I do, yeah.

• 26:00Oprah Winfrey?

  And you think it's gonna get bad? It's gonna, it, it already is bad?

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:04Oprah Winfrey?

  It's gonna get worse. So, I wanna bring Connor McLaren and Alex Slater into this conversation. They are members of Gen Z who co-founded Quittr, Q-U-I-T-T-R. It's a popular app designed to help men break free from this addiction. So Alex, what inspired you to take this on?

• 26:26Speaker 10

  Um, I'll say, me and all my friends struggled with it, and no one was really open about talking about it. Then it was a bunch of YouTubers that sparked this new movement called self-improvement. Quitting porn was a part of that. Um, Gen Z were significantly underserved, so I built an app for it.

• 26:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Right. So you started it for yourself, originally?

• 26:47Speaker 10

  Sure, yeah.

• 26:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, because you were addicted to?

• 26:50Speaker 10

  I wouldn't say addicted, but I definitely wanted to cut it out. And, yeah. As much control as I thought I had, I didn't.

• 26:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 26:59Speaker 10

  So I built a better solution.

• 27:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And so, uh, so when you all got together and decided you were gonna create this app? Yeah, and what does the app actually do?

• 27:11Speaker 11

  So we set out to build an app that makes it cool and fun to stop watching adult content. And so we built a gamified accountability platform, and we wanted to provide users with the most tools and resources to help them get to the finish line. When it comes to the features, you get on the platform, you set a commitment, you actually paid for the platform, so you have an intent to quit. Um, we gamify through streaks, education, resources, and most importantly, we have a community and environment where you're not shamed when you're vulnerable.

• 27:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Hmm.

• 27:45Speaker 11

  Um, and you're supported.

• 27:47Speaker 10

  That's the most important part.

• 27:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, because I know you guys want to make it clear that you're not psychologists, you're not scientists, you're not professors, you're not doctors. But you said it doesn't matter that you've created a tool, this Quitter, that actually works. And how do you know it works?

• 28:05Speaker 10

  Because we have like 25,000 five-star reviews on the App Store. We have a million downloads. We have people coming up to us in person saying we've changed their life, and they're like three months clean because of the platform.

• 28:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:17Speaker 10

  And we have hundreds, thousands of community posts a day, people saying, "Wow, I'm so grateful to be here."

• 28:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Does it, is it just for people addicted to adult content? Or is it also for people addicted to gaming, or people who can't put their phones down?

• 28:30Speaker 10

  It's just adult content for now.

• 28:31Oprah Winfrey?

  It's just adult content.

• 28:32Speaker 10

  I wouldn't say addicted. It's just anyone that wants to stop.

• 28:35Oprah Winfrey?

  What is the process? How long does it take?

• 28:38Speaker 10

  Usually like 90 days.

• 28:39Oprah Winfrey?

  90 days.

• 28:41Speaker 11

  And this is from community posts, users talking out publicly on the platform. And they get clarity after 90 days. That's when they kind of see the light. And then users actually tend to stay on to encourage other users. Because we basically made it as cheap as possible.

• 28:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 28:56Speaker 11

  At a yearly.

• 28:57Speaker 10

  That's the dopamine reset.

• 28:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 29:00Speaker 10

  Pretty much what you guys are talking about. That's how you reset the baseline and no longer feel impulsive to watch it.

• 29:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Have you heard about this?

• 29:07Speaker 11

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, you know about it?

• 29:08Speaker 11

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Have you tried it?

• 29:11Speaker 11

  No, I haven't tried this. I've used other apps similar, like not so much similar to that, but other apps to help quit, to just hold myself accountable.

• 29:20Oprah Winfrey?

  And does it work?

• 29:23Speaker 11

  Yes, but I definitely, I think in the beginning of my journey, it would have been really nice to know about this app and to use it.

• 29:29Oprah Winfrey?

  About Quitter?

• 29:30Speaker 11

  Yeah.

• 29:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 29:31Speaker 10

  Join us.

• 29:32Speaker 11

  Yeah.

• 29:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. So, Dr. Breezing, how is this having a far-reaching, much deeper impact than other behavioral addictions? Or people who just can't quit, okay?

• 29:46Speaker 04

  So, there have been some concerning trends, actually, in terms of sexual behavior and sexual health surveys taken of college-age women who are reporting at increasing rates that they're experiencing what you call sexual asphyxiation or being choked by their sexual partners.

• 30:06Speaker 04

  At an increasing rate, the majority, actually, of college-age women in one of these surveys reported being recently choked by a sexual partner. And the researchers, while...

• 30:15Oprah Winfrey?

  This is because of...

• 30:17Speaker 04

  What they think is happening is that there is increasing exposure to this type of content on adult content websites. And as a consequence of that, like teenagers and young people are actually learning about sexual behavior through adult content websites. And then experimenting with it in their own relationships.

• 30:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, and so therefore, there's an increase in choking and all this? Because, as we were saying earlier, that if you start when you're eight years old, by the time you get to be Kyle's age, you need more intense, more intense things to happen in order for the dopamine hit to occur.

• 30:54Speaker 04

  And so conventional human behavior that would be present on that content is not as stimulating. And so people tend to seek out more provocative content or more extreme content that can frequently tap into some of the things Dr. Caitlin was saying, which is aggression and, at times, even violence.

• 31:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow, we're in trouble. I know you have something to say about this, Dr. Brigair.

• 31:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I would, I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Breezy. We are seeing that this is being used as an educational resource. Okay, pornography increasingly. And what I think is really important to point out...

• 31:33Oprah Winfrey?

  An educational resource for whom?

• 31:34Speaker 03

  For young people about how to have sex. Okay, so this is not a rolled-up Playboy under the bed from the 90s. This is much more potent. This is fast-paced, unfortunately, oftentimes violent, short-form content that people are consuming at high, high dosages. And that is normalizing this type, this type of behavior. And so I think we need to be, it's really uncomfortable to talk about, but I think we do need to be honest about what's going on here. I think, unfortunately, we need to talk to the young people in our lives. I like to use the analogy...

• 32:18Oprah Winfrey?

  They're not gonna tell us. They're gonna do like Kyle. They're gonna hide it.

• 32:21Speaker 03

  I like to use the analogy of a Marvel film.

• 32:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 32:24Speaker 03

  I like to say that, just like a superhero film where they shoot lasers out of their eyes...

• 32:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  This is a performance.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  This is not reflective of most normative, healthy, consensual relationships. And it's not what is expected of you as a woman or a man to do. And I think we need to be really open about the fact that this is the type of content that is out there. And that we should not be using it as a way to inform the way we engage with the people we love.

• 33:02Oprah Winfrey?

  I think the corn's already out of the bag.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 33:06Oprah Winfrey?

  I think the corn's already out of the bag. I don't know how you're gonna pull that back now.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  Absolutely. But if we know that in this country, by the age of 13, half of kids will have consumed, often violent pornography.

• 33:21Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 33:22Speaker 03

  We know that.

• 33:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Adult content.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  Sorry. Pornography.

• 33:26Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  And if we know that, we then have to unfortunately have a more complex conversation than the ones our parents had to have with us.

• 33:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 33:38Speaker 03

  I'm sorry to say.

• 33:39Oprah Winfrey?

  This is very concerning. I see you shaking your head because you see the guys.

• 33:41Speaker 11

  Yeah. So this is actually amazing that you said that because Alex and I have restructured Quitters' mission on how do we change culture? How do you make these young men look up to people that don't watch porn? How do you have NBA stars and celebrities talk about this publicly that they don't watch porn? It's changed their life. And on top of that, we're finding more and more that a significant amount of our downloads are under 18-year-olds. And so, but they're afraid.

• 34:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Or under 18.

• 34:08Speaker 11

  And so, how do you get them? They want it themselves. And what we're finding, I don't have credit cards or they don't want to use their parents' credit cards because of the shame. And so, how do you coach parents to talk about it with their kids in an open way so it's okay? And so, they're not, by the time they're Kyle's age, you know, potentially ruining a relationship.

• 34:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 34:29Oprah Winfrey?

  I am so glad that you joined us here on the Oprah Podcast. We will be right back with more of this critical conversation about the devastating impact that tech addiction is having on the mental health and well-being of an entire generation. We're back with-

• 34:50Speaker 12

  Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic AI tool things. You can social media your thing, generate images or videos of your thing, make decks for presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing, Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing.

• 35:13Oprah Winfrey?

  More of my conversation about tech addiction with leading experts and some Gen Zers. Maddie, I want to go back to you because you said something earlier about not blaming yourself. And even in the video, you were saying you wanted to say to everybody to know that if this is happening in your life or going on in your life, it really has nothing to do with you. Did you blame yourself in the beginning? Did you think, I'm not whatever enough?

• 35:41Speaker 09

  Um, yeah, I did blame myself. I thought I wasn't fit enough, hot enough, didn't put out enough. But even like in our beginning of our marriage, like I would try to be intimate with him, but he just wasn't interested because he had viewed stuff earlier that day. So, you know, but like it's hard not to take that personal.

• 36:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 36:01Speaker 09

  So that's why it took me so long to learn more about addiction and then realize it's really not about me. But it's so much easier said than done.

• 36:08Oprah Winfrey?

  In no way can you compare to whatever is on those adult videos, yes?

• 36:13Speaker 09

  There's no way, but something that I like, he's viewed this since he was eight years old. But I tell myself like, he chose to marry me. He didn't have to marry me. I didn't force him to marry me. Like, he still wanted to marry me. So I remind myself that like I am enough and that's a totally different issue.

• 36:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, you remind yourself. Do you remind?

• 36:31Speaker 09

  He reminds me, yes.

• 36:32Oprah Winfrey?

  And he reminds you too?

• 36:33Speaker 09

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 36:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yes. Because you want this to work out.

• 36:37Speaker 08

  Yes, absolutely.

• 36:38Oprah Winfrey?

  You do, you want it to work out.

• 36:40Speaker 08

  Yeah, absolutely. So that's why I'm doing what I'm doing to put it behind me and not view pornography.

• 36:47Oprah Winfrey?

  And are you, it doesn't make sense to be upset the fact that you were exposed at such a young age, but you understand what happened to you, right?

• 36:54Speaker 08

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think in the beginning, I had a little like grudge towards my stepdad, but I'm like, you know, I was gonna come across it eventually. It just so happened to be at that time, and so I have no hard feelings towards it, but, you know, in the end, it was my choice to constantly go back and view it.

• 37:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. What would you, what would you say to somebody who's going through what you have been through and continue to go through now? Knowing what you know?

• 37:21Speaker 08

  Yeah. The hard part is like you feel shame with viewing this stuff. Just know that you're not alone, and that shame is what keeps you in your addiction. And so.

• 37:32Oprah Winfrey?

  And you feel shame because you are married? Or would you feel shame if you weren't married?

• 37:36Speaker 08

  Viewing it, I mean, I felt it before I was ever dating anyone. I always felt ashamed viewing this stuff. So it's like if you can just set that aside and know that there's other people out there that are going through this.

• 37:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Millions.

• 37:48Speaker 08

  Yeah. And there are resources to hold on to that because it's possible to overcome this, and it doesn't need to control your life and have the control over you that it has at this moment.

• 37:58Oprah Winfrey?

  What do the guys who've gone through this with you, I assume they're mostly guys, yeah, what do the guys who've gone through this with you say after they have been able to better themselves?

• 38:10Speaker 10

  They're having better relationships with people, they can communicate better. Loads of things.

• 38:15Speaker 08

  I think a lot of it, too, is we see that a lot of men coming on the platform don't develop relationships with women. They don't try to go on dates, they don't try to talk to them. And so we realize that once they quit, they're like, well, how do I even talk to a girl at a bar? Or like out to get coffee, like what do I say? This and that. What do I do? Like, how do you go in for your first kiss? X, Y, and Z. And it's like they don't even have the self-confidence, but then after they see the light, they start developing self-confidence, they hit the gym, they diet, and it's that whole self-development.

• 38:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, that's what Jonathan Haidt says in his book, The Anxious Generation, that there is a whole generation of young men. Are you all aware of this, young men? That there's a whole generation of young, young men who have not been socialized to actually have a conversation, ask somebody out on a date, do that. Have you experienced that?

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah. That's exactly right. That there's this sort of critical period where you learn how to do all these things. And if you put technology between you and the human beings that you're supposed to be interacting with, you never really develop those skills. And that critical period passes. And then it becomes very hard to be a, especially a young man, sort of navigating the world of trying to figure out how you talk to potential partners.

• 39:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, especially if you've, if you started like Kyle at eight, it's a wonder you got married and knew how to even ask her. Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 10

  It's because it's easier to just not speak to people. That's uncomfortable. But because we have phones now, we can get the same out of dopamine by scrolling or by texting. They just do that instead.

• 39:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, I admire you for creating this for yourself and then being able to take what was helpful to you and to use it to serve the world. Congratulations to you all for doing it. Kuta, kuta. We didn't even have time to get into Gen Z and online gambling, which I know is a growing problem. Dr. Basing, before we go, can we have a final word from you?

• 40:10Speaker 04

  I think that when you're struggling with addiction, it can be incredibly isolating. You can feel very lonely. It has a huge impact on families, on couples. So I would say like, big problems require a village. Get help, talk to people, talk to your friends, look into having a specialist maybe intervene and provide some guidance.

• 40:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you, thank you all for being here today. Adam, you get the last word. What should we be doing now? What should companies be doing?

• 40:39Speaker 02

  I think companies need to be forced to do the right thing. I think just hoping they'll do the right thing is hoping for a lot. But the best thing they can do is to take a leaf out of the book of companies that have made very successful products in the past using a different approach. One example of this that I've always found very interesting is Shigeru Miyamoto, who was the main developer at Nintendo of some of the best-selling games of all time, used to give the games to his friends. And he would just say, I knew a game was good, worth pursuing and worth making if they enjoyed it, if they got value out of it and it actually made their lives better. Instead of just measuring how much time people spent on the device or on the game. So I think that the key metrics have to change from how much welfare do you bring into

• 41:21Speaker 02

  the world, rather than how many minutes of your time can I extract day to day? And that's the way a lot of these companies operate today, and that's the problem.

• 41:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Adam Alter's book Irresistible is available wherever books are sold, and Dr. Caitlin Reger's new book Smartphone Nation will be released on October 28th. You can preorder that book now. Thank you for being vulnerable enough, open enough, willing enough, courageous enough to share your stories with us here today. Thank you so much for coming this way. As always, thank you to our listeners and this audience for being with us. I'll see you next week. Go well, everybody.

• 42:02Oprah Winfrey?

  You can subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.