The Data: Phones & Screens Improve Kids' Mental Health

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins discuss the controversial topic of allowing children to use smartphones and screens. Simone argues that preventing children from accessing technology can make you a bad parent, citing studies showing that children with access to smartphones, social media, video games, and other digital devices have better self-esteem, spend more time with friends, and engage more in physical activities. They delve into a recent study by the University of South Florida that highlights the benefits of smartphone ownership for kids aged 11 to 13. They also critique arguments from well-known author Jonathan Haidt, who believes that screens are detrimental to children's mental health. The episode also touches on personal anecdotes, discussing the impact of social media on personal and professional lives, and the evolving landscape of media and news reporting.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello everyone, this is Simone Collins with Malcolm Collins. I'm taking over this dream today because I have found that actually you are a bad parent if you deny your child a phone in screens and that the good parents will do it because guess what?

Kids are better off. When they have social media access, when they have phones and tablets and video games, and

Malcolm Collins: Stu define better off, we're talking about studies here.

Simone Collins: They have, they have less nihilism and a better self-esteem. They spend more time with their friends. They spend more time playing sports.

They are just freaking better off with the screens and all these people. Jonathan Het who insist that the screens are the end are wrong, although we will go through their arguments and talk through some of the nuance. But first, I wanna get to this study because I'm so excited about it. It's very vindicating because we are famous for being profiled by the guardian and criticized by everyone on social media, not only for beating our children, but for having them walking around [00:01:00] the house with iPads.

Chained to their necks. I need

Malcolm Collins: to clarify. Barely beating our children. It was, it was a light

Simone Collins: spot. It was a mild beating. Oh my God.

Soccer Boppers! Soccer Boppers! You can sock all day, and bop all night!

Simone Collins: So first like huge, huge thing to, to Reason Magazine, which covered this article really well. And, and what they're covering is a new, as of April, 2025 study called. Kids with smartphones are less depressed, anxious, and bullied than peers without them.

.

Simone Collins: So first huge hat Tip to Reason magazine for covering this research, which was done by a bunch of researchers at the University of South Florida. This was published in April, so this just came out. And these researchers investigated smartphone ownership among 11 to 13 year olds. So these are.

Extremely vulnerable children who are not at all grown up and mature [00:02:00] enough to handle social media, and they're checking out how they did. So, okay. They, they did survey them, but they surveyed a good sample size. They surveyed 1,510 kids from Florida age 11 to 13.

And basically on almost every metric. Measuring wellbeing, smartphone owning kids showed better results. So here are some examples.

Malcolm Collins: You're not surprised at all. 11, 13. So this isn't like older kids. This isn't like teens. This is No, this is 11 to 13. This is

Simone Collins: just as puberty setting in. So I would actually argue that these are some of the most vulnerable years.

I don't know how this period was for you, but it was tough for me. Maybe not for you. I don't know.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I can't imagine if I didn't have a smartphone. I mean, I didn't have a smartphone. You didn't a smartphone? I didn't have whatever was cool. This would be like I didn't have a smartphone and it was tough.

Okay. Not having like aim during that period being one of the outcasts, you, oh my gosh.

Simone Collins: Actually aim really was like one of my few sources of comfort and I think this is part of it and we're getting get into it. So kids with smartphones, oh, do you

Malcolm Collins: remember all the sounds from aim that like ding [00:03:00]

Simone Collins: and the door opening.

Malcolm Collins: Like door opening A

Simone Collins: would come in and you'd be like, yeah, that, that like, that that dopamine rush when you hear the door opening and maybe that person you have a crush on that just logged on. Oh

Malcolm Collins: my God. Did

Simone Collins: you have crushes

Malcolm Collins: on people

Simone Collins: back in here? 100. His, his username was warped, STIG, and, and he ended up dating one of my best friends at the time, so that was a little awkward.

Oh yeah. Were you, did you think he'd like talk to you? Did he ever talk to you on a Oh, like way late into the night, he was clearly like I. It was emotional cheating going on. At the very least. If they two were dating at that same time, whatever happened, those were like my first, my first late night chats.

Which I think for like any, any young person even today, the, you know, the, the, the, the venue has changed, but the, the thrill of the conversation, not night chat has,

Malcolm Collins: well, okay, so hold on. What did he end up doing with his life?

Simone Collins: I have no [00:04:00] idea.

Malcolm Collins: We'll check it before the end of this. I don't

Simone Collins: even remember what his name was.

He didn't have a very easy life, like he lived at the poverty line, had a single mother. Oh. So, you know, I hope he's doing well. I, I wish him well. As, as I, I wish, well, the. Never, never

Malcolm Collins: wish somebody who didn't date you. Well, Simone, you need to wish the fury upon them. Well,

Simone Collins: I, I wish both of them well. I, I can look up my, my friend, I think she had a kid actually pretty young.

So good for her, right? Like right. Yeah. Oh yeah. Doing the prenatal list thing, right? Yeah. Right. And again, goes to show like income does not correlate with,

Malcolm Collins: Everyone in the aim world, who, who lived at that. They know that door opening. It is always like. Is it my crush? Like, yeah. Are we gonna talk? Yeah.

Are we gonna, are we gonna, it's like ding and it's like, oh my god, it's my crush. Yeah. Oh my God. Like, what are we doing?

Simone Collins: So exciting. Oh yeah, that, that killed me. I'm so glad we both had aim days. And again, like for us, even at that age, [00:05:00] and I would say. Chat rooms at our age were way more dangerous. So we, gosh, it was in the early naughties, like around 2001 I guess, when we're doing this chat rooms.

At the time when, when we were first going online, one of the first things that people would ask you and an anonymous chat room, which is pretty much what all of them were at the time online was a SL. Do you remember that? A-S-L-A-A sex location? Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, wait, what? That actually sounds like a great thing.

Like I know a next location, I'm gonna find you. Well, you know, actually it so way, way back in the day, way before the internet. There were some, some comic books that kids would get subscriptions to and at, at the end of them, many of them would, would be little published profiles of kids with their name and address and picture.

So, I don't know, man. Come on, hang

Malcolm Collins: out with me, bro. Predators had it

Simone Collins: so

Malcolm Collins: easy back then. I don't know. I'm talking

Simone Collins: about predators now. Can't

Malcolm Collins: advertise themselves in comic [00:06:00] books.

Simone Collins: It's just, it's just amazing. Okay. Look, look over there. Okay. Let's see if, let's see if she can occupy herself. Tried to set up a puzzle game for her.

But anyway, let's get back to this study conducted by these wonderful, brave researchers at the University of South Florida. Again, this is Florida teens 11 or 13, and

Malcolm Collins: Florida teens. So these aren't like mentally stable teens, let's mind you, right? Yeah, I, I

Simone Collins: do wanna kind of caveat this of like. Okay, but this is Florida.

Like for real. What else are you gonna do? You can't go outside. It's too hot. So I don't know, like, and they do, the next step I should say, that these researchers wanna take is they wanna take this study nationwide. And I am very keen to see their follow-on research. Because Florida is a very strange place.

Everyone's heard of Florida man, right? Like it is not a normal place for healthy people. In our argument. And we lived there, we lived there and we. Got out. [00:07:00] But anyway the, so the, the, the research found, the survey found that kids with smartphones, tablets, social media usage and video game play, were all more likely to spend more in-person time with friends.

So kids with, smartphones, for example, spend an average of three days a week playing with friends, whereas the kids, without them spend an average of two days a week with friends. What, how is this possible? Oh,

Malcolm Collins: you

Simone Collins: cut

Malcolm Collins: the kids' tongue off. They have less friends, so I know. How are they gonna

Simone Collins: coordinate if they're not on their freaking smartphone?

How are they gonna know where the

Malcolm Collins: kids are hanging out? They're no wrong.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. I know. I'm just saying this is,

Malcolm Collins: I'm shaming parents. I am shaming parents who don't give your kids for real social media. For real?

Simone Collins: Yeah. And also, so 80% of smartphone owners, plus 82% of tablet owners reported feeling good about themselves.

Okay. This is in light of the whole Facebook leak and Instagram's making girls feel terrible. No, I'm sorry. Between 80 and 82% of, of basically screen owners, yes. Report feeling good about themselves versus. 69% [00:08:00] without smartphones and 71% without tablets. These are significant differences. This is the people without the screens feel worse about themselves.

Malcolm Collins: I, I can't even believe it. This is, this is wild. It's so validating. This is like the parents who deny their kids alcohol.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So this let's also be denialism. All

Malcolm Collins: right, let's, so

Simone Collins: 26% of smartphone free kids, so these are the, you know, lower screen kids. Agreed with a statement. Life often feels meaningless.

So more than a quarter Okay, sure are like falling in nihilism versus 18% of smartphone users. So more like one out of five. All right. Like what? It's so much less. I know. And honestly, like some of this surprises me. I'm like, I don't know. Like there is a lot of nihilism on the internet right now. And no,

Malcolm Collins: no, no.

I don't think that's what it is. I think the people are misunderstanding broader culture for internet, as I've said, often, often, often. Within my friend circles, the ones who were most online and online first have had the most persistent resistance to the mental health crisis caused by the internet. Yeah.

Well, the [00:09:00] internet is

Simone Collins: a place where you allow your diviv to, to flourish. It is where your enthusiasms flourish. Like we see how our kids use social media now and they use it to explore. Things that they love and then deepen their own enjoyment of those things. IRL for example, Octavian got really into toy soldier videos on YouTube and like literally there's this one dad who just puts a GoPro on his head and then plays with toy soldiers in his kids, and it's really sweet.

It's so sweet and now I don't need to play with him. You do still play with, but then like now he like has all these new scenarios of gameplay and he's like, I'm gonna do this with my toy soldiers and that with my toy soldiers. And it's the same with X shot guns. It's the same with Minecraft. And it's where they like this.

This is where you get that spark and it's where you deepen it. And it's, it's, I think, you know, when you play in isolation without that additional inspiration. Yeah, I think you're gonna get more of that. You know, sadness. [00:10:00] Okay, so also, here's a really big one, right? 'cause everyone talks about cyber bullying, right?

Oh, everyone's so stressed out with cyber bullying, cyber bullying. I would

Malcolm Collins: cyberbullying the person who's not online. I'm gonna tell you that the person, well, no, and that's,

Simone Collins: that's the thing though. Okay? So 32% of smartphone freed kids, so like almost a third, reported that someone had spread rumors or lies about them online compared to 18% of those with funds.

So you're doing great when you're not there to, to clap back when you're not there to defend yourself. You get bullied and you still are being cyber bullied. It's not like they're not aware of it. And of course, actually they're probably, maybe more of them are bullied

Malcolm Collins: because, no, these kids, because here's the thing, they're the little pussy kids.

And I remember these kids when I was growing up, they're the kids whose parents are like, oh, you can't engage with modern media. Oh, you can't watch, you know, Disney, or you can't watch whatever. Like you can't read Harry Potter. Like of course these kids are getting bullied. Like, yeah. What are you even thinking?

And it is okay, like it's okay for your kids to be bullied. You wanna put them in an environment where they can be bullied and they can get stronger for it. Yeah. But you [00:11:00] want them to have a way to offend themselves. Like you don't want them, that's the point. To be bullied because you clipped their wings.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: No, and there's also this whole genre actually it's a small one, but on social media where parents are like really proud of how they've taught their kids to bully back. Which is great. And then they like, they like try to like sit around and wait for their kids to get insulted to see what they say.

Like, one guy recorded his, his kid like at a little baseball diamond and some other kid was like, your dick is the size of a tic-tac. And the kid's like, yeah, that's why your mom's breath smells so good. Oh. Like you don't fit that. If you don't sharpen your child, you gotta prepare them. You that, that is a good

Malcolm Collins: one, by the way.

I love that the kid came up with that off. Oh, my kid came up with that off the spot. I'd be so proud. No. Right. I'd share that online. I, but you don't,

Simone Collins: you don't develop that if you do not play in rough and tumble environments online, you can't sharpen yourself. You, where do you get those ideas? If you're just sitting there thinking and that, you know, there's been a lot of research done.

You actually opened my eyes to this [00:12:00] on. What did people do before they were smartphones? Because everyone's like, Ugh, so disgusting. People can't just wait in line at the store without staring at their phones. People can't just sit and wait for a plane without staring at their phones. People are so baller for raw dogging a flight.

Okay, what are they doing? They're just sitting there. I. All right. Maybe they're imagining something like they're not learning anything new. They're not getting exposed to new ideas.

Malcolm Collins: Actually, you're wrong about this. There's some great old pictures of this, of what were people doing before smartphones?

Okay. And everyone is looking at a newspaper or book.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, when you could and when you didn't have one. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah. Just staring into space. That's certainly better for you. Yeah. Like,

Simone Collins: oh, let's have our kids do that. Because I mean, most like, and people are, oh, like these kids, little toddlers who are given iPads, well, they can't read.

You can be like, read a book. No. Okay. And we'll, we'll get to that more too. Because this sort of comes into the, the criticisms of social media. But I also wanna point out that heavy social media users in this Florida Kid Survey were more likely than [00:13:00] lighter social media users to report exercising or playing sports at least once a day.

So 50% of the heavy social media users, well of course they gotta look buff actually. Yeah. Versus 31%. So the lighter social media users.

Malcolm Collins: I remember I have a vivid memory as a, as a young boy of like exercising a lot in a gym and then like checking my biceps in the mirror to like make sure it looked good.

Oh, okay.

And like the thing is, is they never really changed that much. Like no matter how much effort I put in, nothing ever. Like, they, you'd get a bit more tone. Careful, Malcolm. All those

Simone Collins: lift bro, people are gonna come at you. Oh yeah, you do.

Malcolm Collins: But like, and look, I've got members of my family who are fairly buff. Like I know if I actually put in the effort, but like I feel like I put in enough effort back there. I put in like 30, 45 minutes a day. Like that's a lot.

Simone Collins: Well, I think it's also underrated how much practical or I guess you could say applied weightlifting.

We do. Because we are constantly [00:14:00] hauling around our children. What I,

Malcolm Collins: what I mean by this is, is like even if I put in a lot, I remember how scrawny I still looked in the mirror, right? Like it wasn't like, oh, okay, I look, I remember being happy for the slightest bit of definition.

Simone Collins: But here's the thing, so just like.

Women seem to think these days based on what they see on social media, are just trends that like contouring is necessary and a lot of women claim that it's for male audiences. No. That kind of makeup. No, no, no. Absolutely. And I, and I also, same with weightlifting. Men think somehow, like, and again, this is, I think that, you know, they, they just make these assumptions when they're trying to just sew it, that weightlifting makes them sexier to women.

No, this is a man to man signaling thing. Just like makeup in it beyond the very basics is a woman to woman signaling thing,

Malcolm Collins: period. Oh, absolutely. And, and, and, and the point I'm making here is that when I did all of this. No girl had even kissed me. No girl had shown any [00:15:00] interest in me. No girl. This is not, this was before.

Yeah. Right. Your,

Simone Collins: your breakthrough was when you discovered that leaning into your nerd persona.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. No, I was like, oh, the nerd persona is what they like. That's it. And that's it. Anyway. Anyway,

Simone Collins: so let's get, so I, I will say, you know, because obviously some of this stuff is just, it seems impossibly good. I, I feel like Florida has.

Some, something to do with it. Maybe we might have more moderated results when they go nationwide. We'll see. But there were some negative things and I think the negative things are super straightforward and kind of no, duh. So. The one, the one thing they found was obviously if kids slept with their phones, they got less sleep.

Like, thank you Captain. Obvious. That makes perfect sense. Yeah. You probably shouldn't sleep with your phone. Like adults shouldn't sleep with, no one should sleep with their phones. They also found that I know. Well, you can

Malcolm Collins: look, the problem with sleeping with your phone is you don't wanna risk it getting pregnant.

That was a, that was a dad joke. That was a dad joke. They also

Simone Collins: found that heavy gamers and social media users [00:16:00] reported more sleep problems. So, so children who often post to social media platforms were found in this research to be twice as likely as those who never or rarely post to report moderate or severe symptoms of depression, 54 versus 25% moderate or severe symptoms of anxiety, 50 to 24%, or having sleep issues.

But they also point out that this is a correlary and not causational thing. Of course, we're just looking at correlations and I think that people who have other problems in life will do things excessively, like typically excessive. Anything if it's not like a sign of, of just an addictive personality is often a sign of, you know, trying to bury your, your depression and anxiety that were already there because your life sucks.

And you and I were just talking today about how. The school system, the legacy and industrial school system are just so bad that even you, the Renegade and I, the perfect girl who followed all the rules. We're both [00:17:00] completely miserable at school. And it was the, the depression that we felt. Yeah. Which was in, in, I think both of our cases.

Clinical. Right. I think you, you were diagnosed as depression. Well, yeah, but I don't believe in clinical. No. Well, but anyway, it was measured as clinical depression was entirely situational. Mine at least went away as, as I got outta school. So,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. No, yeah. I, I, all of this is the thing. I actually used to grind my teeth severely.

Right. Like it would cause me major issues and I had to wear a night guard. Yeah. Used to wear

Simone Collins: this like. Like football player.

Malcolm Collins: You know, when I stopped wearing my night guard is when I started dating Simone. That's so

Simone Collins: romantic

Malcolm Collins: and I've never needed to wear it since. And you know, somebody could be like, were you really that less dressed?

Like apparently sleep in me, couldn't deal with life back then. I just ground my teeth and ground my teeth every night. And then. I met Simone and I started sleeping with, and this was early in our relationship too, not like after we had like, I'd say first like five months of our relationship. And I was just like, I can't, I don't need to wear this anymore.

And, [00:18:00] and I never needed to wear it again. And I remember before that I didn't wear it one night and I broke one of my teeth.

Simone Collins: Oh, that's awful.

Malcolm Collins: And that's why I wore it so fastidiously after that, 'cause I was so freaked out about it happening again. Yeah,

Simone Collins: that's, that is terrifying. It's breaking a tooth. I can't, oh, I can't even, anyway.

So also they found that frequent social media posters were more likely to report sleep issues and symptoms of depression and anxiety. But again, I think anyone who does something in excess may, that may be a symptom of some other underlying issue. So I'm not giving that too much credence. Finally, I wanted to point out just some interesting findings that are like neither here nor there.

From the research that it was just like, huh, like, okay. Okay. Tell me, tell me, so there were, there were, there were significant shifts in app usage, depending on household income. So can you guess what was used most amongst the, the kids in households with an annual income of $50,000 or less?

Malcolm Collins: Hold on TikTok?

Simone Collins: No. [00:19:00] No. YouTube was one of them. The other one you're not gonna guess is Roblox. But I kind of, I kind of dig it. I think I get a very low class feel from Roblox. Roblox does feel local. I don't know what it feels very well. It feels very, it's like the minions of children, you know? It's like very, I don't wanna say cruise ship human 'cause actually cruise ships are very expensive.

But I, I want, it's, it is like, it's not, it's not the intellectuals world. If I may,

Malcolm Collins: yes.

Simone Collins: All right. Minecraft is more of an intellectuals world. There are other, there are other games so, class

Malcolm Collins: influencers. So can

Simone Collins: you imagine what, what kids used most from higher income households?

Malcolm Collins: No idea. Think about

Simone Collins: your mother.

What, what platforms was she really big on?

Malcolm Collins: She was on Insta. Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: And. TikTok

Malcolm Collins: TikTok. Really?

Simone Collins: So I'm like, oh my gosh. Wow. The,

Malcolm Collins: the platforms like, well, those are the ones that my, like cousins and stuff all use, like [00:20:00] the young ones.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And they're all like super freaking,

Malcolm Collins: you know, all the photos of them were like,

Simone Collins: this is me and Ka, this is me in Italy.

This is me in, in the house in Maine. You know, like, they're all, they're so, like, I, what I'm so concerned about is that. I can't remember the name for this like short term profession of hot girls on Instagram who during college just get invited to really expensive clubs by club promoters to basically be like sexy women at tables with like really wealthy guys buying bottle service.

But like, I feel like they're, they don't realize that they're trying to audition for that, but they are. By trying to do what's trendy, subconsciously auditioning for that, just about to start college. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. It's like stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. Continue. Although, like I, I also read this, this great blog post by a young woman who just [00:21:00] interviewed a bunch of her friends who actually did that.

And they're like, yeah, I mean, it was fine. Like. I didn't get addicted to the drugs. Like it was just fun and then like, it, it was over. So, I don't know.

Malcolm Collins: Interesting that it's so different from me. So there's a few people in my family that have taken this other route,

Simone Collins: Uhhuh, which

Malcolm Collins: is like the, well, in my generation it was like the goth route, right?

Like,

Simone Collins: yeah, your family doesn't

Malcolm Collins: do that. This generation, what is it? You know, like, and generation before, it's like that brony route. And this generation, what is it? It's, it's the, it is the center right route. Like no, genuinely I think being a center, right, like Gen Alpha person is about equivalent to like being a gohar punk gen alpha person in our generation.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So there's another, there's another social class slash income related finding that I thought was interesting. They found that kids from higher income households were also significantly more likely to post publicly on social media. So 77, 70 7% of kids from the highest income households. Posted publicly versus 56% among kids from the lowest income households.

So now every time I [00:22:00] like click to a colleague or friends. Private social media feed. I'm gonna be like, mm. Hello Class.

Malcolm Collins: Hello class. Hello class.

Simone Collins: I mean, I know it's, we, we have lots of wealthy friends who decide to go private and you're like, my privacy, no, I hate them. We always

Malcolm Collins: go like, Ooh, my privacy. My privacy good.

To me, they're talking about, we're like, we're like, you guys suck. Yeah. Like, it's so lame.

Simone Collins: And another thing, this isn't, I mean, it's partially related to income and it's partially related to gender. They found a large percentage of kids overall agreed with the sentiment. Life often feels meaningless with agreement significantly higher among boys, which surprised me.

'cause Jonathan, he's whole thing is like girls are getting hit harder. Whereas 23% of boys versus 13% of, is Jonathan

Malcolm Collins: Height full of a big bag of poop?

Simone Collins: Not exactly we're gonna get into that, but like 23% of boys reported feeling this versus 16% of girls and then among kids from higher income households.[00:23:00]

More of them. Were feeling this nihilism. 31% in high income households, one 50 K. The higher

Malcolm Collins: income kids are all like mentally messed up right now. Yeah. And

Simone Collins: that's why like spoons are all like upper middle class girls,

Malcolm Collins: white girls. Oh yeah. No, of

Simone Collins: course they're,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. And then only,

Simone Collins: so only 10% of the kids in households making 10 K, or sorry, 50 K or below as household income.

Reported this, this, that they identified with the sentiment. Life often feels meaningless, which I just like.

Malcolm Collins: Which shows, you know, people are gonna see all this and they're gonna be like, oh, the rich kids are online more. That's why you see the mental health more among the people who are online more. And what we're pointing out here is no, actually you have a countertrend to that.

It really is being online more. And having access to these online environments increases your mental health at this age, within this current cultural context? Well,

Simone Collins: there are confounding factors. I think what this is more parsing out is that girls what this is pointing out is [00:24:00] being wealthy can associate you, I think with some cultures that are more toxic.

And that being closer to the lower income range may separate you more from what I would consider to be the urban monoculture. I think the urban monoculture is inherently a culture of wealth and privilege. And, and I just see that as more as like evidence that lower income distances you from the Iwan culture and also reduces your feelings of nihilism.

So in terms of just in general, the researchers take away advice to people, which I think is super solid because screens are great, but they're not perfect. They say, one, it's actually fine to let kids as young as 11 have smartphones. Fantastic. But you should. That's fine. Protect it. No, ai we're, we're saying, I mean, we personally would say below that age is great, but they, they only survey kids 1113.

This

Malcolm Collins: is what I say about kids. I think it's really [00:25:00] dangerous to allow kids to have friends that are ai.

Simone Collins: Dangerous. No, it's good to have friends who are ai. We don't want real friends who are

Malcolm Collins: notis.

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I I think, I think giving your kids real humans will reject them. Humans are gross.

Humans. Can gr themis do none of that?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Ais don't. Well, but when they do it, it's in the, the, the way you want, you know.

Malcolm Collins: Oh God. Okay. Anyway, continue. Continue. Yeah. Go into this. Yeah.

Simone Collins: But so like, yes. Phone's good. But don't let your kids sleep with your phones, which is great. They, they also, they, they discourage having young children post publicly on social platforms.

I disagree with this, and we've talked about this in other episodes, but we think that one of the only ways that you are going to survive in the post AI economy is to have a strong online reputation. And to be really known for something and to be able to [00:26:00] make custom products and provide custom experiences that other people aren't known for doing, because that's the only way, either from wealthy people living in their walled gardens or your local community is going to know to mm-hmm.

Buy services or, or products from you. I disagree with him on that, but I don't disagree with him on the, on the sleep thing. And what we do, of course is like, we're really careful about making sure that there's, you know, screen access is, is limited.

It's, it's, it's very time gated and I think that, that, that's a good thing.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, we're building new AI products for our kids right now that allow them to just like, talk to an AI that will constantly draw them back to educational topics. And so we'll see when that's built and that can be available to you guys.

And I don't understand why we're the only ones making this stuff like. Is everyone else retarded? I, you know,

Simone Collins: I, so what, what we see among our friend group, which is, you know, highly educated, wealthy elites, [00:27:00] is. A screen bad screen, bad

Malcolm Collins: scream, bad. It's because they're, they're losers. They're losers. That's why.

And this is a level of, of wealthy beyond what they consider wealthy in this study. Right? Like, yeah,

Simone Collins: because they consider wealthy making over $150,000. These are people generally would be like a million

Malcolm Collins: plus a year.

Simone Collins: Yeah, they have like unlimited ELTA MD sunscreen sitting around their house. It's insane.

Malcolm Collins: ELTA MD sunscreen.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. I

Malcolm Collins: remember we went to it for there. You're like,

Simone Collins: this is insane. Why are you, I feel like I'm looking at gold bricks sitting on a shelf. Yeah. I don't know. Like my, my indicators of wealth are a little bit different. Just like I think you, and I think like true wealth is never thinking twice about ordering walk at a restaurant, but I don't know if we've ever reached some level of wealth where we.

Well,

Malcolm Collins: no, because we are so, like whenever we make more money, we always just spend it on like our companies and stuff, you know, like it just

Simone Collins: goes away. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But whatever. That's, that's all good. So I also wanna get [00:28:00] into though, like, why, why are all these wealthy elite people like phone bad? And I partially, which data are

Malcolm Collins: they looking at?

Simone Collins: What data are they? And I think mostly. They're sitting and listening to Jonathan Het and being like, mm, yeah. Yes. Because he is the author of the book, the Anxious, anxious Generation. So like he had recently this huge push to talk about what he describes as the great rewiring of childhood in which play-based childhood is being supplanted by a phone-based childhood.

So, among other things, you know, it's a decline in time, God friends, oh, actually

Malcolm Collins: a step back from this and, and yell at him. So. Our kids, if they go outside and they play in the creek without us monitoring them. And we need to be monitoring all of them at once, which is like, you can't do that for that long.

And, and this is what I used to do as a kid at their age. I just go play outside. I go play with the dogs and local dogs. I go dig up things. I'd make little dams. They'll have CPS call on them. I'll have the cops call [00:29:00] on me.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I put my kids on Minecraft. That's exactly what they're doing.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: My little boy shows me what he's doing on Minecraft.

It's like, oh look, I found out if you give the dog a bone, he likes you more. It's like, oh look, I found out that when you pour water on lava, it like makes stone. Oh look. They are exploring and engaging with the environment and if you deny a kid both playing outside and Minecraft, you have denied them the entire experience.

But continue.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, I mean. Yes, but we're, you know, we'll go deeper on this. But yeah, he argues that there's been a decline in time spent with friends since 2010. But again, this research shows that the kids with smartphones spend more time with kids. Anyway, well, we'll keep going. He also argues that girls are more affected by social media due to social comparison and cyber bullying while bought boys.

Are more impacted by, and here we go again. Gaming and pornography leading

Malcolm Collins: to social withdrawal. Take a few notes here. The girls being more impacted. We actually saw this in [00:30:00] another episode. I don't know if it'll run before this one or not. But what we found in that episode is that social media affected your mental health much more dramatically if you were progressive than anywhere.

Conservative.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And this, and that

Simone Collins: really shows just how much of this is urban monoculture. It, it's, it's cultural. And the urban monoculture is a culture that, that makes mental health problems faster. What I'm

Malcolm Collins: making is, is this is why girls are more negatively affected by it, not because girls are intrinsic, the political leanings.

Their political leanings are more leftists, and that's why they're more negatively affected by it. Yeah. In terms of the gaming and pornography thing a lot of what people say about like, how, so for example, if you go to a prison and you, and you look at these rapists versus the non rapists. Okay.

Rapists typically started engaging with pornography at a much later age than the non-US.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like that's why in our marriage contract, this is actually one of the first things that. Was, was in our marriage contract was are we going to restrict our [00:31:00] children's access to erotic material? And there was never any conflict.

It was just like, no, obviously not. That's obviously not, I don't want them to up to. P. DA

Malcolm Collins: files and rapists

Simone Collins: because we, yeah, we knew this intuitively. Even just when like negotiating points. Alright.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, sorry. Just like really clear touch relationship contract that like some people are like, Ooh, but my intuition, well your intuition is wrong.

Okay. This is something that has been studied extensively and restricting access increases the rate of being interested in children, being interested in great. Being interested in like. Oh my God, it's so horrifying. In, in, in like the Czech Republic when they made it legal again, I wanna say it was the Czech Republic, right?

The, the amount of child assault dropped by 50% and this result has been seen multiple times across multiple countries. Yeah. Being anti-porn is being pro child grape in the, in the, and, and you can be like, well, aesthetically I'm against both. That's a bit like being like, well. You know, I'm, I'm [00:32:00] anti-nuclear and pro environment.

It's like, okay, like that may work with your base, but realistically that proves you don't actually care about either.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. It's performative and that, that really bothers us. So I think, you know, a lot of this comes down to people misattributing. Mo problems of modern culture and overregulation of parenting to social media and screen use when really.

That's not it at all. So some of the studies, for example, that height highlights one is from 2020 called Underestimating Digital Media Harm, published in the Journal Nature Human Behavior, so very respectable journal. The finding basically of the study was that they wanted to critique earlier research like 2019 research that downplayed social media's impact, arguing that social media use, especially among girls, show stronger correlations with depression and anxiety when controlling only for demographic variables, they countered claims that affects are as [00:33:00] trivial as quote unquote eating potatoes when apparently that's kind of what turned out to be true. And I think the problem is with this correlation, not causation. They, they saw that people who used a lot of social media, you know, experienced problems, but also like people who masturbate too much, people who eat too much, people who exercise too much, who do anything too much probably have other problems.

And it's just really annoying to me that that. Was cited. So he also cited another 2020 study called Commentary Screens, teens and Psychological Wellbeing, published in Frontiers in Psychology. Again, a very respected journal. This study analyzes time use diary studies, and they found that heavy screen use correlates with reduced wellbeing, particularly for girls.

But again, if there's a girl. Who's spending five plus hours on her phone every day? Something's probably wrong. Like she's alone, she's isolated. She doesn't have other things to do. She doesn't have

Malcolm Collins: friends. That means she doesn't have a, a community. That means she doesn't have Oh my God. Siblings.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Would, would you not be shocked that she has [00:34:00] problems? Yeah, like obviously if you have five hours to do that, you're being deprived of something. They also so height also in his book and, and work in general cites a lot the British Millennium Cohort study, which found that among 19,000 children born between 2000 and 2002, girls spending over five hours a day on social media we're three times more likely to be depressed than non-users.

And the correlation was weaker for boys. But again, like this is just what we said. This is another one of his issues. And then he also referred to the 2021 Facebook leak. I think this is a little bit more. Damning because basically internal meta research showed that Instagram harmed teen girls' mental health, particularly their body image.

And yeah, they continue to, oh, body

Malcolm Collins: image what?

Simone Collins: Well, and that's it. I mean, I, I just really dunno. I think it's very hard to be a teen girl and not have some form of body dysmorphia. Like I had body dysmorphia. And you know, if, if like a therapist or some psychologist were to analyze me, [00:35:00] they would probably think it's from the manga I read and they'd be like, oh, it's the manga that's causing it.

No, I was going through puberty. I had body dysmorphia because I, I hated my body and it's very normal. Like I, I just, they today they'd say

Malcolm Collins: it's because you're trans.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well, yeah, that too. But here they're just, you know, blaming. You need to be sterilized,

Malcolm Collins: chemically. That's the only solution.

Simone Collins: Like girls just, I mean, you know.

There, there are always ideals that, that girls are gonna turn to somewhere and there's going to be problems and, and just, you know, like I, I, I just, yeah, it's, I I get it. I, I do think that Instagram can even make me sometimes feel like I need to hold myself to a higher standard. I don't think that's really a bad thing, and I don't think Instagram makes my life worse.

Mm-hmm. So then he also looked at some key research center research that found that half of teens reported feeling addicted to their phones. And nearly 100% of US teams were on smartphones with half reporting that they were constantly, constantly on their smartphones. I think that this is one of those things where like you can go back in time and find [00:36:00] writers decrying the overuse of.

Books and periodicals and then the radio used to

Malcolm Collins: the, so for people who don't know this the ways that people are freaking out about this stuff today, they used to freak out about books. They'd be like, oh, and radio. And

Simone Collins: phones and television.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, but, but books as, I think the thing where everyone today is gonna be like, okay, that was clearly stupid.

Yeah. But interesting about the book freakout is that they said it disproportionately affected women. Well, you can even

Simone Collins: kind of see this in this, in the trope of Bell and Beauty and the Beast being Yes. So stuck in her books and it was like, this girl has a problem. She won't rid her books to her. And then she goes to the Beast House and he has like the equivalent of like, I don't know, it's like a social media house and

Malcolm Collins: is

Simone Collins: a social media.

She's

Malcolm Collins: always go

Simone Collins: libraries. It's like, oh, he got a smartphone. I, I don't even know. It's just like, oh, he is. Like the best internet. I, it's just so strange.

And then he, he also looked at international data on mental health [00:37:00] trends pointing out that anxiety increased 134% of depression, 106% among US youth from 2010 to 2018 with Gen Z born post 1995 hit hardest with the 139% increase.

He also cited similar trends in the UK now. Yeah, totally. But it's not the screens, it's the culture, it's progressivism. And we've shown this

Malcolm Collins: for when you are online a ton and you are a conservative, it doesn't negatively affect your mental health. If you are online a ton and you are progressive, it does no wonder it is negatively affecting girls more.

He didn't control for that. So this high guy sounds like a bit of a

Simone Collins: No, he's great. I mean, he's very smart and I mean, and I think, you know. We're a little bit, we're being a little bit too mean here because he does have this subtle, like he argues that like you need to have kids interact with each other and play outside.

And what I love about this new research is it's like, yes, and these things go [00:38:00] together that the kids who have the phones also exercise more, play with their friends more have better self-esteem, have lower nihilism. No, no,

Malcolm Collins: no. What gets me is that he didn't run this study. He could have run this study.

I. He didn't because it wouldn't have agreed Oh, to to, yeah, for like,

Simone Collins: to, to confirm all

Malcolm Collins: of this stuff was always correlational and he could have just said, okay, let's separate these two groups.

Simone Collins: I mean, I, I didn't admittedly look for research that looked for causation that like had a, some kind of double line study where some kids

Malcolm Collins: were deprived to social.

I dunno, this whole thing, I don't, I don't like, I don't like it, I don't like these anti-tech people. I will say, you know, there,

Simone Collins: there was actually though, I, I, I want, I just wanna point out that some. Some schools like had concerted, let's remove all screens, programs that really curtailed students' social media use and it didn't help them.

Malcolm Collins: And there was one school that did AI tutoring for kids and it bumped them into the top 1% of students in the state.

Simone Collins: Right. And that also, like studies have shown that [00:39:00] ai, therapists perform better than real therapists for people. So, ah, like we were totally right. We were totally right to chain iPad,

Malcolm Collins: Simone, we will replace you and I'm okay with that.

You know, you're, you are, you are. We will raise stronger, more sturdy children and time. You can look at our children when they grow up. You know, you can, you can, oh, look at your kids. They all ended up messed up. Maybe. But if they didn't, then we were right and you were wrong.

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah, but I, so here's, here's what I think happened.

I, I think height, if we were talking with him and he'd be like, yeah, hey, like, I recognize this. The argument I'm making is that parents need to let their kids play outside more. The problem of course, is that parents clap back with like. Yes. And we're not allowed to. We will get arrested. We can't let our kids lay outside.

And so this is just a really difficult situation. It just bothers me that a [00:40:00] huge signaler in parenting communities is we don't do screens. I don't allow my children to be on screens, and they're setting up their kids for. I think a lot of harm because one here we're seeing that kids are more socially isolated.

More nihilistic. Oh, come on. The reason this guy has these kids is he only has

Malcolm Collins: two kids. Yeah, of course. He doesn't know that's actually normal. Can't just let kids play outside in the current like legal climate, like, ugh.

Simone Collins: Well, one thing I wanna say too, though, is that I think there are some exceptions. So I know some parents who do have strict no screen policies, but they also exist within like extremely tight knit religious communities.

And so their kids are like constantly interacting with people and themselves,

Malcolm Collins: and they have big, I think that's fine if you're in like an extreme, but like

Simone Collins: most kids are, you know, a, a single child. Or they have one sibling. And often, like more than often than not, I've seen like pretty big age gaps with siblings these days too, [00:41:00] which is like, that means you don't really have a close friend.

You just kind of have a competitor for attention that annoys you and you can't really relate to, which is extra difficult and sad. That seems like the worst type of sibling to have. Is one that has like a, an age gap where you guys just can't play together and really relate. Which is why we try to have boy, boy, girl, girls side by side, so they can at least have like one super close friend that they can really, really strongly relate to.

That's of the same gender, so they can go through those things together. But yeah, it's like I'm okay. With holier than now parents being like, I don't do screens when their kids have all these other things to do in strong religious communities. But that's just not the norm in the United States and in many parts of Europe.

So all of our like, and, and again, all those wealthy, well-educated parents that we're thinking of, they don't do that. They're not like that. These are the people with two kids Max. And these kids are. Like I, I just can't imagine like the frustration they're going through and I feel really bad, but hopefully this research will get to them.

Reason Mag is, is pretty well read [00:42:00] among these types of people, right? So like. Hopefully it'll get to them. Right? Maybe.

Malcolm Collins: I don't know. Anyway here's a fun thing from today is, is yesterday you did an interview with a b, C. Can you tell me? Yeah. It was the oddest

Simone Collins: thing. So yeah, this is, this is you know, A, B, C, it's owned by Disney.

They, they wanted to do a segment on the, the executive orders we submitted and the Trump administration considering prenatal as policy. And they're like, Hey, you know, we, we wanna, we wanna run this in the morning. And. It's, it's gonna go on our new segment and like, but we have to record tonight.

And I'm like, why? Like, I, I don't get it. Like, how, how do we do this? And they're like, just like, can you come on at eight? And so I do. And. I joined this Zoom call and I'm met by a really nice young man. Like he was just so sweet and, and so patient and so kind. But like on the call was him and I could see him sitting alone in a giant, like a BC studio, like classic like newsroom for an old legacy news publication.

No one else there just empty [00:43:00] desks. 'cause he was doing the night shift where mm-hmm. It looks like what they do is they just prepare all of the segments for the morning no show, which starts at four 4:00 AM. Ahead of time. And then I think what happens is the newscasters pretend to interview people. Like, I haven't actually seen the Segment tv.

No, but I love this as they're like,

Malcolm Collins: why is news dying? Where? Where's the authenticity? Oh, I'll tell you where the authenticity is, is right here. You, mother, mother, mother.

Simone Collins: Well, because what seems to have happened is what? What he did. Is is there was also like, I guess a producer on the phone too. 'cause he was like talking with someone else the whole time of being like, oh, that's so that, that is dystopia that he'd like go, yeah, I'm like, I, I couldn't see or hear this producer, but the producer was telling him what to do and then he'd ask me a question and I would give my answer and he asked another question.

And what seems to happen is he recorded a bunch of answers. And what I think was gonna happen was that Ben, like the reporter that next morning would act as though she's asking me the questions and then I would show up as the talking head with that. And yeah, like to your [00:44:00] point, if that's what happened and I wanna see this segment, that's not, you know, that's not authentic media.

That's not I think that's not what people are here for. They wanna see real live conversations. And of course, to be fair, other media outlets had us on live, CNN's situation room, had us on live today with Andy screaming and everything. And then who is it that was here this afternoon?

Malcolm Collins: Newsweek. Oh, what was it?

This was, this was, oh, something things or something like that. What was it? They didn't reach out

Simone Collins: to me, so I have no idea who they are. You tell me some big,

Malcolm Collins: some big news. Okay, I'll look it up. It's in my, it's in my notes here. It's some big news station.

Simone Collins: But they actually came out and interviewed. And so I guess, I guess some, some legacy medias like really doing original reporting, but others, like even when they get original sources and you still have to give credit to anyone who actually gives us a chance to comment and talk.

But it was just such a weird process of like, wait, so I'm speaking with a young associate. [00:45:00] Working for Disney and then his like mysterious producer who's only talking to him. It's Inside Edition,

Malcolm Collins: by the way. That's what it was. Inside Edition.

Simone Collins: Okay. Well, they were, they were great. Very professional. And the, again, like this kid working for Disney also was great.

It was just really weird the way it was done. It just like. Recording me doing some, like, talking head things. And then I guess they're splicing it into their news show, making it look more authentic in life without it actually being live, which I get like, it is easier, especially when it's early in the morning.

Most people aren't gonna wake up at 4:00 AM and do a live interview. So, you know, but it was still, it was a, I always wonder when I watch the news, like how these things are going. And it's interesting to see the different ways they play out. Like when we were on CNN today. Joining the call was really weird.

'cause normally on shows and podcasts, you join a Zoom call and you can see everyone. Whereas with CNN, like they have this, their, their special proprietary link to join and you're just looking at this gray screen with some instructions on it and then you just, yeah, that was like,

Malcolm Collins: I almost felt like unprofessional and insulting.

I was like, what are you guys doing? Like, well, I think they

Simone Collins: [00:46:00] didn't, they don't want people to be distracted by their faces. No, that's not

Malcolm Collins: what it is. They just don't care. They don't care about anything, feeling authentic. They don't care about anything touching the, the body. I don't know.

Simone Collins: I mean, I re I remember, so I used to listen to NPR like throughout my entire, it was like the wallpaper of my childhood, the audio wallpaper of my childhood.

And a big issue that happened with people calling in is they kept having to say like, turn off your radio. Turn off your radio. Because they would be listening to themselves as they talked on the radio and then getting distracted and just being like, oh my God, I'm on the radio. And I think maybe there's like this thing with, you know, people on

Malcolm Collins: sweetheart.

Simone Collins: I don't, I don't think it was just that because you couldn't hear it as a listener, even when it was live. Okay. All I'm saying. I I just find this, this contrast between new and old media to be really interesting and I love that the Trump administration has added to the fringes. Oh, yeah, yeah. They did such

Malcolm Collins: great job with the Press Corps.

It's amazing. It's amazing.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So what, what they've done for those who don't know is, [00:47:00] is in, in the White House press. Briefing room. There traditionally has been this audience of chairs that is all dedicated to legacy media companies, like only the privileged and the establishment get to be there.

Now they're allowing standing room only space at the fringes where they have a rotational group of new media. Reporters, and this is people, podcasters, substack, writers, YouTubers, talkers sit and actually ask questions. And they field about 25% of their questions from this fringe group, which is a really big deal.

And I mean, the legacy media freaking hates it because they used to have, you know, all the question time, all of the respect. But I think that the Trump administration, and I'm sure featured administrations will do this too, is recognizes that the audiences. Are not necessarily watching a lot of these legacy news channels.

And I, I mean, I, I, we see this like you, you see some, some legacy news channels get like millions of views. Yes. [00:48:00] But then like there are some that, like I am, I would be surprised if they got 3000 views for news segment. I No,

Malcolm Collins: I agree. I know. I actually think that most only get about 3000 views p new segment.

Yeah. When I see,

Simone Collins: yeah. So. Interesting times. Very interesting times. But yeah, I'm, I'm just so thrilled. I feel so vindicated that like, okay. Thank you again. Social media, it's not about sheltering, it's about annotation. It is about showing how to use it productively. It is about, I

Malcolm Collins: agree, it, it's not about sheltering, it's about beating.

You need to lightly beat your child while with, with, with the iPad, with, with the device.

Simone Collins: With the device. Oh no. That's why you have those protective screens so you don't break them accidentally

Malcolm Collins: can't wait. You build AI that can beat my People are afraid of like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I need, I need an AI that can bot my kid when they're making mistakes.

You're so sweet. By the way, Simone, what are we doing for dinner tonight? What's the story? What's the story?

Simone Collins: We are doing [00:49:00] more pineapple curry for you. I love it. I can try. To do fried, sorry, fried plantains for the first time. I'm a little nervous.

Malcolm Collins: We try. You cannot mess it up too much in worst case scenario, just microwave some rice.

Simone Collins: Yeah. See, that's the thing. Yeah. What I do is I, I make coconut lime rice for Malcolm in big batches, and then I freeze it in single serve packets in the freezer. Oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: You used to pay like six bucks for coconut lime rice as like, instead of like the, the $2 rice at like restaurants and you're like making it for free.

What? Not for free. I mean, you put in all this effort and love.

Simone Collins: Well, you, I mean, we we're still paying for the coconut and for limes. And it does cost extra. It

Malcolm Collins: cost barely nothing. Like,

Simone Collins: yeah. What, what is a Trader Joe's can of coconut milk? Like,

Malcolm Collins: is it like a dollar 50 you're missing? Is that if you go to like an Indian or, or Japanese restaurant, like the, the coconut lime rice or the coconut or lime rice costs like $6 and the other rice costs like a dollar 50.

Simone Collins: No, it's true. Yeah. The, the upcharge [00:50:00] is insane for, for that stuff really. Gets my goat.

Malcolm Collins: But like they've never been able to make curry as good as your tropical curry, which I love. You know what else is

Simone Collins: insane in terms of upcharges though? Is garlic non versus butter non, like, are you kidding me? It's literally you're just slapping garlic on top.

Yeah. Like I know you have a lot of mint garlic sitting back there. I know you do. What? Why are you charging me 30% more? For exactly. Sometimes even 50% more. Like typically you'll see Yeah. If, if, if if plain non is $3, then garlic non is $5.

Malcolm Collins: Right. It's insane. It makes no sense if you understand how they're made.

It's bad price discrimination right there. I love you, Simone, for learning how to make all these dishes. You didn't when we got married. You were the perfect wife. .

Simone Collins: You are a heavenly

Malcolm Collins: beast.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: and I mean that in the, in the, in the [00:51:00] most adoration possible way.

Simone Collins: Well, I live to serve, and I mean that in the most submissive and breathable way.

That's so cringe. Ah, instant regret. Instant regret your mic fell out again. That is, that is, that is what every guy

Malcolm Collins: wants. I'll tell you what, okay. Well listen in breathable wine and every woman doesn't want that. I've seen, I've read 50 Shades of Gray. Okay. I've read these. I don't think, do they in, in this series, do they?

I

Simone Collins: don't think they ever have kids,

Malcolm Collins: do they? I mean, no, but I've seen the progressives who go out there cosplaying as like. You know, tale Women. Yeah. You should watch our episode on that if you haven't seen it. Yeah, it's

Simone Collins: funny, they don't, they don't cosplay as. The Marthas, they don't cosplay as like the, the, the wives.

These actually oppressed people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, because actually the Handmaids have a, a fairly privileged role. You know, they get to pick food. They're [00:52:00] household, they're me. Hi. Yeah. They're, why do they, why do they dress up with, with the sexual fetish ones in this, in this whole, you know why? We all know why.

It's a little questionable. Yeah. People who think that we're perverted, just read the Pragma Guide to Sexuality. You'll discover how we actually feel about sex. I think people think that we're like. Really into it because we talk about it when we talk about it the same way your mic's unplugged again. No, no.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry. I don't think that excuse by this. I don't think that's anybody who's like, oh, they're actually like really in, I think that that's why we're able to talk about it, because people know that like we're not into it, and so it's not like,

Simone Collins: oh, no, no. Like people, people have DM me and they're like, oh, I bet you're into this.

Like, oh, I bet you like, no, we, we did. No, no.

Malcolm Collins: Themselves into us, I think is what it is often.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, I mean, I think [00:53:00] that, and that happens a lot like when, when you relate to someone you think they're smart, you're also gonna assume that they live like you do, enjoy what you do and agree with most of your things,

Malcolm Collins: which is okay because we're smart.

Anyway, I love you to eson. I cannot wait to dig into that curry tonight.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: And what if you hit these plantains? Wow. You're gonna unlock a whole new level.

Simone Collins: I don't know. I'm nervous. We'll, we'll see. S slice in fries. I mean, what go wrong with like butter? You know, like all you're doing is putting them in boiling oil, butter

Malcolm Collins: or butter?

Simone Collins: No. Think butter's better. Anyway, I'll go goodbye.

What do you wanna say to the people? I'm a people, I'm a soon, I'm a dad. I'm a, I love my army man. Right over there. He loves his army, man. Yeah, right. Because it's fun. I My a Okay, because it's, because it's so fun. I can, it shows you are men videos. [00:54:00] Yeah. Tyson, what do you wanna say? I,

that's it. Andy, what do you wanna say? Oh, I just, he's, he's trying to learn how to talk. Oh, she's still working on it. Yeah. All right. I love you guys all very good. Well, Wendy's one years old now. She is. Yeah. So I already put, she can play with my army man as my wish. Um, when he becomes five years old, like I'm five years old.

And I love you. And I love you too, Titan. And I love you too. Can I love you too? Can I wanna see the picture I just displayed with Cindy? Okay. And me and Titan. Okay, let's watch. And your mom.

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