00:00:00.000Hello, all. We have a great show for you today, all about how social media is toxic for women1.00
00:00:12.340and girls. But before we get into that, I've got a quickie little commercial for the Sicilian
00:00:19.140inheritance. Now, I am sometimes bad at tooting my own horn, or I'm not, I can do it. I've
00:00:27.740been telling you this is the book of the summer, but sometimes I get nervous and I get embarrassed.
00:00:34.060That's why it is so important to have friends who will toot your horn for you, who will do all of
00:00:41.160the tooting. Toot, toot, toot, toot, toot. And one of those friends for me is Nora McInerney of the
00:00:47.220podcast Terrible Things for Asking. She made these commercials for the Sicilian Inheritance for me
00:00:52.600that are on her podcast. And they're so, so good that I'm just going to, I'm going to play it on
00:00:57.900my podcast. So here it is. When I'm looking at the next 12 months of my life, what I do not have
00:01:09.600on the books and what is impossible for me to have on the books is a trip to Sicily. However,
00:01:15.180the next best thing to having my own adventure in Sicily was reading Joe Piazza's new novel,
00:01:20.660the Sicilian inheritance. It is a vacation in a book. If your vacations were
00:01:26.600sexy murder mysteries that also dive deep into generational trauma, but not in too heavy of a
00:01:36.040way, it is the perfect book to take on a plane. It is the perfect book to read next to your public
00:01:43.260pool while taking breaks to yell at your kids. It is the perfect book to get you out of a reading
00:01:50.140Slump, and it is available now wherever you get books. As I said, today we are talking about how
00:01:57.480social media is incredibly toxic for women and girls. I say these things all the time, and
00:02:03.340sometimes I start to feel like a real conspiracy theorist, like the social media version of a
00:02:08.620prepper telling you to build a tunnel under your house with lots of canned goods and a generator.
00:02:14.220but this is something I truly believe, and my guest today explains it incredibly well in her
00:02:20.280new book, Over the Influence. Over the Influence. Same name as my sub stack, actually. This means
00:02:27.860it'll be really easy for you to remember. Over the Influence, the book, looks at how social media
00:02:33.400is affecting every single aspect of the lives of women and girls, from our parenting to how we date,
00:02:39.680our careers, and our physical safety. But it also gives practical tips about what we can
00:02:45.520do about it, what we can do as users, as creators, what lawmakers can do,
00:02:51.400and what we need to be demanding from tech companies in order to solve these problems.
00:03:02.140My name is Cara Alaimo. I'm an Associate Professor of Communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University,
00:03:08.140and I am the author of Over the Influence, Why Social Media is Toxic for Women and Girls and
00:03:15.100How We Can Take It Back. This is a really big topic. It's really big. We might need to have
00:03:22.460you on again. I love that. Also, I've been calling your university Farley Dickinson University for
00:03:31.580my entire life, I think because of The Fudge Books by Judy Blume, maybe, but really happy
00:03:38.320to be corrected. And I love anyone in academia that is tackling this subject because some
00:03:45.020very big universities that I will not name have told me they're not that interested in
00:03:50.320this subject. So good on you guys for going after it, because I think it is the biggest
00:03:56.060media and communications issue of our time. I completely agree with you. And, you know,
00:04:03.360on a personal note, when I started writing my book, I, as a mom, was thinking about how to
00:04:10.000find answers for how I should handle my own daughter's use of social media. And having
00:04:16.120finished this book, that is no longer my biggest fear. What terrifies me now is that even if I can
00:04:23.120help my daughters get their own use of social media right, they still will have to live in the
00:04:28.920world that social networks have wrought. And the shocking thing that I discovered when I was
00:04:35.700researching this book and talking to women and girls across the country about their experiences
00:04:40.560and talking to experts is that I actually think that social media is making the world less safe
00:04:48.300for women and is normalizing the abuse of women and is normalizing depriving us of rights and
00:04:56.040resources offline. A hundred percent. Absolutely. Let's dig into that first. How is social media
00:05:05.820making the world less safe for women? Again, huge thing in maybe in all the ways.1.00
00:05:12.040In a lot of the ways. One of the things that really shocked me was a recent CDC report, which found a 17% increase in the percentage of teen girls who said that they had been forced to have sex.
00:05:27.920and you think about this and this has happened over a 10-year period as the use of social media
00:05:36.020has skyrocketed but I think that one thing that we've seen in recent years is more acceptance of
00:05:43.740overt misogyny on social networks and so you know this is all over TikTok and other mainstream
00:05:50.160apps in particular as part of youth culture where it's just considered hilarious to make these jokes
00:05:57.420about, for instance, violently abusing women. And, you know, you don't see this with other
00:06:03.980forms of extremism on, you know, mainstream TikTok. It's not considered hilarious to joke
00:06:09.520about beheading people. But for some reason, it is when we talk about abusing women. And we all0.96
00:06:15.780know that women and girls come up against all sorts of abuse on social media. But what I think
00:06:20.220it's done now is normalized violence against women and abusing women offline. And, you know,
00:06:26.880there's a huge body of literature that shows us that people who are exposed to violence in the
00:06:32.460media are actually more likely to commit acts of violence offline. And so a lot of people talk
00:06:38.660about, you know, what happens IRL in real life. And I've come to believe that that term is not
00:06:44.800only antiquated, it's also really dangerous, because it suggests that what's happening on
00:06:50.620social media is real life, when in fact, what's happening on social networks is affecting
00:06:56.020my safety and the safety of my girls and the way that people treat women and girls
00:07:01.720in every corner of our lives. Yeah, I mean, I agree with that 100 percent and I talk about it
00:07:09.120all the time. How old are your girls? My daughters are very young. They're still toddlers, but I'm0.66
00:07:14.640worried early and I think for good reason. No, I mean, truth, right? My kids are young. I've got
00:07:21.400a six, six-year-old boy, a four-year-old girl, and a one-year-old girl. And I'm terrified for
00:07:28.180all of them. It's so funny. I was on my phone doing something. I mean, I don't know. We do
00:07:34.260all the things on our phone. And my son said, oh, are you going to post that to TikTok? And
00:07:38.300I'm not a big TikToker, which was hilarious to me because I'm like, how the F do you know about
00:07:42.940TikTok? This isn't going anywhere. The train has left the station. So the best thing we can do
00:07:50.200is learn as much about it and be incredibly critical of it and learn how to protect our
00:07:57.040children from it. And that's exactly what you're doing in this book. Talk to me a little bit about
00:08:03.180the research that you did and the folks that you talked to for this. So I talked to experts
00:08:09.440in social media and mental health. I also talked to ordinary women and girls about their experiences.
00:08:15.820And yes, Jo, I think you're exactly right. It is not too early because one of the things that I came to realize is that I have to be talking to the parents of my kids' friends early, very soon, so that we all collectively agree to hold off on allowing our kids to get phones until they're older.
00:08:38.220because once a few of my daughter's friends have phones, this battle is completely lost.
00:08:44.780There's no way I can win it. And one of the people I talked to was Jonathan Haidt,
00:08:49.620and he argues that kids should not be on social networks until they're at least 16.
00:08:56.700Part of the reason is because there is a documented association between using social media
00:09:03.780and lower life satisfaction among girls between the ages of 11 and 13.
00:09:09.500And that, of course, is the age when they typically go through puberty.
00:09:14.680I mean, this is not like I'm unhappy because I'm on social media.
00:16:45.020I think it's really important to talk to kids about why we shouldn't judge anyone, especially ourselves, for their bodies.
00:16:53.120And one of my favorite authors is Kate Mann, who has this new book called Unshrinking Out, and it's about our society's fat phobia.
00:17:01.500And, you know, there's this moment in the book where she talks about her young daughter, who's about the same age as ours.
00:17:07.420And she says she just took Instagram out and showed her bodies of people, people of all different races, all different sizes, all different levels of ability.
00:17:18.360And she didn't pass judgment on what they looked like, but instead she just talked about how grateful she was that they were in the world with us.
00:17:26.500And I think that's a really, really cool and interesting way of teaching kids not to judge people based on their bodies.
00:17:33.900But I do think we need some of those deeper conversations about how, you know, we can't control our weights, generally speaking, you know, kids who are adopted end up with very similar weights to their biological parents, not their adoptive parents, and why it's just kind of superficial and lame to judge people for their appearances.
00:17:54.040I also think it's important to set the ground rules with our kids about how they can use social media because they'll probably have some really reasonable and smart proposals for you.
00:18:06.180Maybe social media is something that kids use when they're done with their homework as a treat at the end of the day.
00:18:11.680But I also think that probably a lot of exceptions will be called for.
00:18:15.460I've definitely scrolled on my own phone when I've been waiting for news about a sick family member or something huge was happening in the world.
00:18:25.860And I think it's reasonable to talk to kids about when you're going to break the rules or when they are going to be allowed to use their phone doing their homework because they need to research topic.
00:18:36.820So I think having these ongoing conversations is just super important.
00:18:43.440And we just can't bury our heads in the sand, is the thing, anymore.
00:18:48.460And we're going to have to be flexible.
00:18:50.440And I like what you said about letting kids use social media as a treat so that it is a treat and it's not just something you're getting all the time, right?
00:19:01.400Like, I don't let my kids have unlimited popsicles, even though I buy the sugar-free kind.
00:19:06.740And they try to get unlimited popsicles.
00:19:09.440They're always open in that freezer drawer.1.00
00:19:11.480And I'm always like, shut that shit.1.00
00:19:13.040which is why my son went on a play date the other day and they wrote shit shit shit all over a piece1.00
00:19:21.260of paper uh and and the parents sent it to me so that is my fault that is my fault and it's just0.99
00:19:26.600a cross i have to bear but much like we talk about bad language with children from a very early age
00:19:33.320we need to be talking about social media it just needs to be this thing that we acknowledge as the
00:19:39.120massive elephant in the room from a very young age because our kids are also watching us stare
00:19:44.920at our phones all the time. They don't know what we're doing. And so I think we need to make it a
00:19:50.900really robust and continuing conversation and not shy away from the bad stuff. I say to my
00:19:58.680six-year-old when he goes on YouTube, and he does go on YouTube because it's easy to use and he wants
00:20:04.760to look up how to make a squirrel maze or what is the square root of 1,237. And if I catch him
00:20:13.580watching something that I don't love, I'm like, oh, is that crap? Are you watching the crap that's0.99
00:20:17.780on YouTube? Again, their potty language is my fault. I know this. But we set boundaries for1.00
00:20:24.600everything else in our lives, in their lives. Why is it so crazy to talk about setting those
00:20:30.420boundaries for social media. I think part of it is my kids often go ballistic when I take away a
00:20:36.040screen. So mad. So mad. It's like I just physically harmed them. Yes. I mean, they are just as
00:20:42.960addictive, I believe, as those popsicles. And so I do think that just in order to be savvy and make
00:20:48.840things easier for ourselves, the other thing that we have to think about as parents is giving our
00:20:53.760kids healthy offline things to do, which would just naturally reduce the amount of time they
00:21:00.320spend with screens. I think a lot of parents we know don't let their kids get together with
00:21:06.020friends all the time in person and worry about their safety when they leave the house. But I
00:21:11.320actually think that if you leave your kid in their bedroom, they could be on TikTok or Instagram
00:21:16.880having far more dangerous experiences than they would be if they got together with their friends
00:21:22.960at the park or even at the mall. And so I do think it's unfortunately on us to keep kids
00:21:29.220busy with healthier stuff, which, you know, you can't really be on your screen when you're playing
00:21:33.880soccer. Totally, totally. And I mean, my house has become the house of too many children,
00:21:43.080not just because we had an unexpected third baby, but because I have been trying to let this be the
00:21:51.020house where my kids have play dates all the time and I'm like yeah just like you know drop the kids
00:21:54.740off let them run around and build forts and because otherwise they will gravitate towards
00:22:00.740screens and I want them to have this really robust play-based childhood but also without me
00:22:08.120helicoptering them like I don't want to give them activities to do all the time or necessarily do
00:22:13.300them with them all the time either absolutely I think that that's like just another burden on
00:22:19.540parent. And part of it too is that our schools have failed kids, right? So they're not really
00:22:25.900getting these educations in schools. I created, now that you know how to say it, a new program
00:22:32.580where students can study social media at Fairleigh Dickinson University. And one of the things that
00:22:38.480really shocks me is that almost none of the college students I teach have ever gotten an
00:22:45.960education in protecting themselves online and using social media before they walk through the
00:22:52.040door of my classroom. It's insane to me. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. I mean, the project
00:22:58.120that I proposed when I was talking to one of the schools near me when I was thinking about getting
00:23:05.820a PhD in communication was that we need to start media literacy in kindergarten. It should be a
00:23:11.020program in schools and that media literacy includes social media and also what is news
00:23:17.540and how do we absorb news and how do we absorb all of these things and also set our own boundaries
00:23:22.420for it and it was so funny the person I talked to was like oh well they're just not that interested
00:23:29.400in kids or in social media and I'm like wow oh cool well yeah let's just look I mean just let0.93
00:23:37.320the world go to fucking shit man it's cool don't don't worry about it so i love that you're doing0.98
00:23:42.280that but i wish we could start it when kids were in kindergarten take the onus off the parents at0.99
00:23:46.460some point right so if your kids or my kids were growing up in finland right now they would be
00:23:52.220learning from elementary school from the time they were taught how to read and write they would learn
00:23:57.820things like how content is designed to prey on their emotion and how to spot fake news um and
00:24:05.580it's particularly terrifying that kids in the U.S. largely aren't getting these educations
00:24:10.100because of the arrival of deep fakes, right? And so we know that they're going to be a force in1.00
00:24:16.000the election. But we also know that kids are totally unprepared for how to handle them
00:24:23.320themselves. I live in New Jersey, and there was a big story this past fall about these boys in a
00:24:31.540local high school who decided to create nude deep fakes of their female classmate oh god i haven't
00:24:39.160heard this but of course they i mean of course they are because i mean look i also don't want
00:24:44.320to act like any of this is new because if boys could have done this when we went to high school
00:24:48.880they would have and i remember i do remember like boys would get a hold of a playboy or a penthouse
00:24:55.040or something and then they would cut out pictures of girls heads and paste them on the penthouse
00:24:59.780playboy thing. So like, let's not pretend that boys have changed or people have changed. The
00:25:04.120social media is changing things. But, you know, I read this Wall Street Journal article about this
00:25:09.920whole episode. It happened in Westfield, New Jersey. And the thing I couldn't get over was
00:25:15.520that some parents just thought it was a youthful transgression. Oh, no, your kid's being a pervert.0.97
00:25:24.820Yeah. And what I want, what we have to teach our kids, because schools aren't, is that
00:25:29.720when a woman's nude images end up online, she is at greater risk of sexual assault. It is going to0.66
00:25:35.280be harder for her to find a job. It is going to be harder for her to date. She is at greater risk0.99
00:25:39.540of depression. She is at greater risk of suicide. This isn't funny. And so I just think it's so
00:25:46.320important for us to be talking to our kids about why they can never engage with this kind of
00:25:51.220content. Then there's, of course, all the child porn laws, right? If your kid's sex, they could
00:25:57.040technically be prosecuted for creating child porn of themselves. And so since they're not
00:26:04.300getting these educations in schools, parents really have to be up on this and have to know
00:26:09.540to talk to their kids about all these risks. Totally. Totally. What are the things that you
00:26:17.180have seen talking to parents that are incredibly effective?
00:26:22.200so i think keeping an open dialogue is incredibly effective um the number one thing that i heard
00:26:32.080and it came from an attorney who handled cases when things go wrong um carrie goldberg is she
00:26:39.040said to me that you know she sees cases of when a kid is being say sextorted right so that's where
00:26:46.120someone has established an emotional relationship with them online convinced to say a teen girl
00:26:51.920to share an intimate image, and then they come back and say, Venmo me $10,000, or this is going
00:26:58.040to be texted to all of your classmates and put online, and it'll never come off. And when this
00:27:05.260happens, Carrie told me that the most dangerous thing is when kids are afraid to go to their
00:27:11.700parents because, of course, they're afraid that their parents will take away their phones.
00:27:16.740And that's what prevents them from getting help. And of course, the longer something like this
00:27:20.440goes on, the worse it becomes. And the harder it becomes to get images offline once they're posted.
00:27:28.100And so I think the number one thing is knowing that your kid will come to you when they need help
00:27:34.520and you won't take their phone away. And you just have to tell them that and you have to promise
00:27:38.360that and you have to actually live up to it. Having that open dialogue is really important.
00:27:44.160And being up on what kids are talking about online is really important.
00:27:49.000So recently it's been, you know, all the Sephora kids TikToks that have tweens hoarding hoodie products or the Botox baby stuff that's all over social media that has young people signing up for Botox, which is totally dangerous and unnecessary in your 20s.
00:28:07.460Right. We have to know that this is what's trending and that this is what our kids are being exposed to.
00:28:12.520and then we have to talk about it and head it off. Right. We need a basic literacy. We can't
00:28:18.200just bury our heads in the sand and say, oh, well, you know, I just I don't go on TikTok or
00:28:23.220I don't go on on Instagram. We we have to go on so that we know what our kids are consuming and
00:28:31.680how we can talk to them about it. And that sucks because, again, I mean, God, when this book is
00:28:36.680out. I think I'm just going to quit. Like I said, it makes me feel terrible all the time. But0.95
00:28:44.740like I said, the train has left the station. And so if we're not literate in this massive form of
00:28:54.560media, then there's nothing we can do to protect our kids from it. That's right. But I also think
00:29:00.160that, you know, this is the answer a lot of people give women when we complain about social networks.
00:29:05.040they say, oh, if they're so toxic, just don't use them. And as you and I know, we're promoting our
00:29:10.960books on social media. Social media is a place where women can empower ourselves. And so I really0.99
00:29:16.600reject this argument that it's on us to leave these apps rather than on being on tech companies
00:29:22.580and lawmakers to fix so that we can use them the same way men use these apps and these platforms
00:29:29.320to promote their work and to advocate for issues we care about and to engage with people all
00:29:35.020I just don't think we should have to give that up just because these networks have been built so terribly.
00:29:41.440Amen, Mama. I agree. I totally agree. Tell everyone where they can find you and your book
00:29:50.580and order your book, which is out this week, because this is such an incredible resource
00:29:56.400for parents of not just girls, but boys, because we also need to, I mean, we need to teach boys
00:30:04.120the same things about social media, but we need to be teaching boys how to care for women in a
00:30:09.500world filled with social media? Oh, my goodness. This is a book for parents of kids of all genders,
00:30:15.160but it's also about how social media is affecting our careers and our dating. I have to come back,
00:30:20.220Jo, and talk to you more. But for now, my book, Over the Influence, Why Social Media is Toxic
00:30:25.280for Women and Girls and How We Can Take It Back, is available pretty much anywhere you buy books.
00:30:30.480My website is karaalimo.com, and I'll be on a huge national book tour. I also have a bunch of
00:30:37.320free virtual events if you're interested in coming to them and talking about these things
00:30:41.820more. And you can find me on, of course, Instagram, X, and Facebook.
00:30:49.740Wonderful. Yeah, no, we have to have you back on. I want to hear, I do want to hear more about
00:30:53.580social media and dating. It's something that we haven't, we haven't touched yet, and we should
00:30:58.940touch it more. Yeah, so my theory for the reason why a record number of Americans are single right0.70
00:31:06.740now is because of dating apps. Oh, all right. Well, more to come. Come back on. Go do your
00:31:12.440book stuff, sell a bunch of books, and then come back on and talk to me about how social media is
00:31:17.540ruining yet another thing in our lives. I look forward to it.