The Connection with Marty Moss-Coane

Most American teens and tweens have smartphones and spend hours each day streaming videos, playing games, and using social media. Phones can allow kids to be creative, help them explore new ideas, and connect them with peers who share their interests. But they also come with significant downsides: screen time can be a major distraction, expose young users to inappropriate or dangerous content, rob them of sleep, and increase the risk of depression and anxiety. Psychologist Jean Twenge sounded the alarm about these risks nearly a decade ago. Her 2017 Atlantic article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”, sparked a national conversation about the impact of digital technology on kids. As a mother of three daughters, Twenge knows firsthand how difficult it is for parents to monitor and manage their kid’s online lives. She argues that tech companies have failed to take responsibility for protecting young people and that parents have been left to pick up the slack. Her new book, 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World, gives parents the tools they need to help their kids develop a healthier relationship with social media. Twenge is a professor of psychology at San Diego State University.

A conversation with Columbia University linguist and author John McWhorter on the power of language, the dangers of censorship, and the evolution of slang and swearing.

Clinical psychologist Ingrid Clayton used fawning as a coping strategy growing up in a scary home. It helped her in those frightening moments but came at a terrible price.

Why don’t we always prioritize what matters most—like making time for family and friends or fitting in a workout during a busy day? Emily Falk believes that understanding how our brain works can help us make better, more intentional choices. Falk is a professor of communication, psychology, and marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directs the Communication Neuroscience Lab. Her new book, What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change, explores how different regions of the brain shape the big and small decisions we make every day.

NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg reflects on lessons learned and not learned from the COVID pandemic and the ways it changed our lives, culture and politics.

There are songs that can transport us to memorable moments from our past, especially from our adolescence. Those memories are often vivid, conjuring up intense feelings about a first love, a broken heart, a shared experience with friends. Music, even just a few notes, has a way of unlocking forgotten events and relationships, creating a soundtrack for our lives. Our guest this week is Elizabeth Margulis, director of The Music Cognition Lab at Princeton University. She joins us to discuss why music can transport us and connect us to others, how different cultures shape our taste in music, and how melodies affect our mood. We’ll also talk about why some tunes can get stuck in our head, why repetition is central to music, where music is stored in the brain, and how music can unlock language for people with aphasia.

What can octopuses on MDMA teach us about sociability? That’s what neuroscientist and psychedelics researcher Gül Dölen wanted to find out. The creatures are antisocial with a brain structure very different from humans, but on the drug ecstasy, octopuses wanted to hang out with each other – and were even “touchy-feely.” Dölen has been doing groundbreaking work with MDMA and other hallucinogens to learn how they affect brains and unlock their therapeutic potential. She has a particular interest in critical periods in brain development, when humans are open to learning something new and meaningful from the environment. It’s a fascinating time to be researching MDMA, psilocybin, LSD and other psychedelics as they show increasing potential to treat depression, anxiety, PTSD and addiction…but they are no magic pill.

Philosopher Stephen Cave says that we humans struggle with something he calls “The Mortality Paradox.” We know that death is inevitable, and yet we cannot conceive of not existing. Instead, we make up stories that help us live with this existential conundrum. These narratives include the search for the Fountain of Youth, ideas about resurrection, rebirth, the immortality of the soul, and the value of what we leave behind—like children. While our life spans have increased dramatically over the last century thanks to science and medicine, the longevity industry now promises to defy aging—and even death itself. How would living to 150 and beyond change what it means to be alive? Does our mortality make life more precious and meaningful? Is aging an illness to be cured? How can we deal with our fear of death? Our guest, Stephen Cave, is a professor at Cambridge University and director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. He’s the author of Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization, and co-author of Should You Choose to Live Forever?

I’m old enough to remember what life was like before the establishment of the EPA in 1970 and the passage of The Clean Air and Clean Water Acts a few years later. Smog and toxic waste sites were a public health threat. Pollution from industrial emissions and vehicle exhaust was common. Rivers and lakes were filled with untreated waste causing some to catch fire. While environmental hazards remain, policies and public awareness went a long way to fixing the problem. Now we face another crisis: floods, droughts and intense storms caused by climate change and climate change denial. Instead of reducing CO2 emissions, the Trump administration is in the process of dismantling environmental regulations, undermining renewable energy programs and investing in fossil fuels. Climate scientist Kate Marvel is our guest on The Connection this week and says it’s only human to feel angry and afraid when faced with unchecked global warming. She says there are also reasons to feel hopeful about the future. Her new book is Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About the Changing Planet.

In her new book “Spellbound,” historian Molly Worthen explains how charisma is more about storytelling than charm.