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Join James Petrossi in 'Leave the Feed: 30 Days of Disconnect' as he interviews creators and mental health advocates about their journeys, the digital quagmire, and tips to create a healthier relationship with social media.
[00:00:00]
James Petrossi: Hello and welcome to Leave the Feed 30 Days of Disconnect. Today is day 23 gold stars, and the guest with me today deserves many gold stars for all the amazing work that she's done. Emma Lembke, welcome to the show.
Emma Lembke: Well, thank you for having me.
James Petrossi: So let's talk about your journey as a digital wellness advocate. Where did it start? What was the spark and how has all of this unfolded?
Emma Lembke: Yeah, absolutely. Very big question. And it, I actually am gonna be celebrating in a, a few months my, I think, sixth year of doing advocacy work. So it's nice to take a moment and reflect on, you know, how I got here and, and what all this work has, has done for me. but it, it. You have to go all the way back in my life when we're talking about, you know, what propelled me to [00:01:00] do digital advocacy work specifically as it relates to protecting kids online. So when I was 12 years old, I got my first social media account which I thought was. So unbelievably magical. I was the last in my friend group to get Instagram. That was the app that I, that I chose to enter the online world in. And you know, at first I was scrolling. I was liking, I was posting, commenting, felt like I had the entire world at my fingertips, which I still, to a degree think. It's a beautiful thing that social media can provide. But very quickly after kind of getting into that rhythm, being in on social media as a young person, specifically 12 years old, I began to feel the parasitic weight of a system that was built, not for me, but for profit. So I was getting pulled in to addictive patterns because of the endless scroll. I was getting fed pro anorexic content because the algorithm could pick up that I was a young girl. Things like that were happening and were really beginning to [00:02:00] negatively impact me, my self image and just my mental health in general as a, as a young person. that negative experience, I continued scrolling mindlessly for five to six hours every day, absorbing that negative content for a few years, and then I kind of hit the ninth grade and I remember. There was the buzz of a notification. I had the pian response to grab for the phone. And between that buzz and the grab, I actually kind of had a breaking point and I, I asked myself, you know, I'm someone who values control so much, and I'm giving so much willingly, giving so much control over to social media.
What's happening? Why is this happening? And I'm, am I alone in this or are other people feeling this? So I started to do just minimal research, you know, everything from. know, is social media bad question mark, which is not a good question to ask. All the way to, you know, what is, what's the algorithm that's being used that's pulling me in? what I found in my research, and I did this for, for many years, but what I found in my research [00:03:00] in during high school was that. There was this growing body of evidence that social media was negatively impacting younger generations. Their attention span, their sleep, their ability to function, their ability to learn, et cetera, and their mental health, et cetera, et cetera. Was all this data to show that my generation, gen Z was becoming the loneliest generation, but also the most connected online. But what I couldn't find in all of that data were the young people and their stories. And I knew that that was a huge misstep because I, I had an understanding at that point that the people who were going to help, you know, help young people get out of parasitic relationships with social media, the. Most well-equipped individuals to help mend that relationship. Were the ones who had been hurt in the first place. It's gonna be Gen Z. The people who have an acute understanding of how the online world, excuse me, how the online world work and how it can and connect each other, and how we can express ourselves, [00:04:00] but also where its shortcomings were. I knew that that was kind of a, a missing puzzle piece. So flash forward to this was senior year going into my senior year of high school during COVID. I had so much time on my hands. I had this idea for a youth-led community that would discuss building better relationships with social media. And I kind of said, you know what?
This is the time everyone's gonna be online. Everyone I think is going to be, have to face this relationship that they have with social media. And it's time that we provide space for young people to talk about the difficulties that come with being young and online. So I launched what is, what was then called log off, and it's still called the Log Off Movement. I launched that into the environment thinking. You know, maybe I would get. A few people from, like, I'm from Alabama, so I thought maybe a few people from Alabama would join and it would be amazing and fun. And then like the, the third person or so that signed up for our leadership board was from the Philippines. So that's when I, I had this, this. Large [00:05:00] realization that was like, okay, wow. This is a, a movement that people not only are really excited about, but they wanna be a part of. And it's not confined to any geographic area, to any gender, any race. Like this is impacting us all in a myriad of ways. Let's explore this all together.
So. Log off was founded. And then throughout my advocacy work, I founded a few other organizations, some that lean towards policy, some that leans just a little bit more towards activation in terms of building better habits. But all of the work that I do really centered around that question of can you have a better relationship with social media as a young person?
And how can you build a better online experience for young people when they decide to enter the online world?
James Petrossi: Now let's talk about policy a little bit because we've had a lot of great creators on this show have amazing platforms that they use for good to uplift each other. And I think when it comes to policy, a lot of creators really just see, is TikTok gonna get banned? [00:06:00] Or what's happening with the algorithm?
And I think there's so much that happens in the undercurrent with the work that you're doing. Talk a little bit about some policy changes that you've seen since you started log off that you're really happy about. Then. Where else is work being done that people might not be aware of?
Emma Lembke: that's a wonderful question. So I, I do wanna, you know, note that. Oftentimes when you think through social media and legislation, it's, it can be a scary conversation because obviously you don't want too much overreach. You don't want you know, censorship. You don't want companies being told what and what they can and can't an extent post, but at the same time. You need to have accountability. You need to create a space where young people can go online and not be harmed. So legislation is, it's very surgical. It's very interesting, and I think that people should explore it beyond, to your point, just the TikTok ban, because that's, that is very sensational, but it's not just what's [00:07:00] being worked on. I'll, I'll give you kind of two, I'll, I'll answer your first question. what's kind of something that people should be looking at. And then I'll, I'll talk a little bit more about this idea of safety by design. In Australia recently, I believe it was last week, it got put into effect or maybe two weeks ago.
There is a ban for social media users under the age of 16. So I think that's one piece of legislation and a type of legislation that you're seeing, which is people asking. Okay. How can we protect the developing mind? One way is we just ban individuals under a certain age from AC accessing the internet, or not the internet, the of social media. I say to that, you know, bans are blunt instruments for change. You know, banning something in this scenario, I, I think is gonna be a really interesting case and test testing site. Basically, I [00:08:00] think we're gonna see. How young people attempt to evade? Just going on, like going online and going onto the, on social media, how are tech companies enforcing these age requirements? I think we're gonna see is this helpful for test scores? Is this helpful for attention in classrooms? Like, gonna be very interesting. So I want people to pay attention to Australia right now. But what I want people to think about even more critically is not just how can I ban a young person from going in the online world because people are gonna go into the online world.
I think that we should ask more critically, how do you create a safer online experience when young people decide to enter? Because it's different for everyone. You know, one. 16-year-old is gonna be a lot more mature and is gonna be able to handle more in the online world than potentially another one in another country. I wanna ask really critically, how do we design. features and how do we design these online worlds to [00:09:00] produce a better experience? So that's a kind of the, the overarching term for that is safety by design. So a lot of individuals in the United States are looking at how to craft that type of legislation. been work in the UK that's been outstanding. Most of my work is, is in the United States and it's looking at how can we, look at creating safety by design bills state legislatures or federally that will protect young people. Right now I, I'd say that, the United States is not the world leader in terms of protecting kids online. But again, good work is being done to critically think through how to create those online experiences. One thing I will say that's also an interesting piece of policy is Bell be programming, is. How could we take the phone out of the classroom to protect the learning experience? So those policies have been put into place across the United States by many, by many states, have, have looked [00:10:00] at how to ensure that young people are. Prioritize specifically in their learning experience. Again, that doesn't answer the question or that doesn't fix the issue, which is when they're out of the classroom and they're scrolling, are they still being fed harmful content? Are they still being targeted, harmful ads? Those issues still present themselves, it is really a, a great next step in terms of asking critically, how do we. Carve out times for young people to be young people, specifically in this case, how do we carve out time for young people to learn and to have that, that learning educational experience that they need to thrive? So that's one piece of the puzzle. But again, there are so many different approaches to protecting kids online to again building that better online experience. In the United States, we're working on figuring out what that looks like for us. But other countries are, are, are taking leaps and, and strides ahead of us, and it's important to look at them and understand what works and what doesn't work.
James Petrossi: So safety by [00:11:00] design, how is that impacting the user experience inside of social media and what's being done? You know, I see on Instagram like, okay, you know, there's certain accounts for people that are under a certain age, and that seems very surface level, but I. What's being done in collaboration with the tech companies to help minimize some of the risks to our youth?
Emma Lembke: For instance I went to an event. A mo two months ago that was the launch of the Instagram teen accounts and, and greater protections. here's what I'll say. I think that. Any change that is made to help protect young people online by design, for instance, like having the highest level of safety on by default, having it so that a youth young person cannot be contacted by a random, like DM by a random stranger.
Like things like that. Those are small little. Tweaks [00:12:00] in designing the features and the functionality of these accounts, they make monumental differences. That means a young girl is not gonna be sent pictures that she doesn't want from strangers. That means that if again, you're, you're changing the culture of the culture online, if you're saying by default we're gonna make everything at the highest le level of privacy turned on, rather than having a young person have to go in and turn on all these features. those are very important and I applaud companies that are looking at how to increase those type of design features to protect young users. When you look at the case of, you know, like Instagram and Instagram teen accounts, though it can be difficult because I wanna cheer, I want to applaud, but it's, it's a, a lot too late.
You know, it's, it's, these are features and functionalities that I think should have been in place a lot sooner, and it seems that they are only being created when, when pressure is being applied. [00:13:00] what I would encourage tech companies to do is to think really critically with how do you work with young people themselves, and how do you work with youth activists for like digital change? How do you work with these actors to proactively design better features rather than just looking like your only responding when things get bad? Mm-hmm.
James Petrossi: Now it's really interesting with education 'cause yes, we want kids to be kids. We want that. Authentic play the natural living, connecting with our humanity. And then you look at a country like Australia and you're like, wow, okay, so now you have to wait till you're 16. But I'm curious from an education standpoint, is anything being done to educate our youth before they use social media?
On why to use social media, on how to use social media, on how to create with purpose and, and how to create with safety and how to communicate with safety, how to lift each other up. You know how to have a positive voice [00:14:00] and sort of give them the tools and knowledge and resources to be positive, active participants in social media before they have that rite of passage.
Emma Lembke: Yeah. You know, I. what I, what I'll say is what I have seen and witnessed in my own work from when I started in 2020 to where I am now, there has been an enormous uptick in schools being interested in programming. Exactly like how you, you laid it out that not only teaches young people about social media, but how to productively use it and how to be a productive member of society when you're online. Because again, like. wanna have these conversations about cyber bullying, you wanna have conversations about, you know, etiquette online. But I think what young people are really craving right now is, to your point, how do I go online and not get addicted? How do I curate a better experience for myself and for my friends?
How do I. Put up boundaries with me and my online devices. These are questions that weren't really getting [00:15:00] answered in the, in the educational environment. So I, I've seen an uptick in interest in having these programs, and I think that it's a very, I am glad that you brought it up because it's very astute, which is, you can't just have bans.
You can't, there's no silver bullet. But you can't just have bans. You can't just have safety by design. Piece, like pieces of legislation getting passed. You can't just have bell to bell programming and not also supplement it with a robust holistic media literacy programming. You, you can, because you need to be able to teach young people about the skills necessary to enter the online world.
I think it is a non-negotiable at this point because I don't have the stats. the top of my mind, but I know it's in the 90% percentile About how many young people are online, specifically on like social media today. It's an enormous amount. Like so many hours a day are, are put into the online world. If we're spending that much time in one [00:16:00] place, we should be able to teach young people how to, how to exist in that world in a healthy way. Because if we're just allowing young people to basically go into the wild, wild west of the online world, which is what we're doing right now, we're not equipping them with the skills to thrive and not only thrive, but to succeed when you're using the online world, because you can succeed, you can connect. You can express yourself, you can explore the online world in all of its glory. Like I, I was a young girl from Birmingham, Alabama, and I had so many beautiful, cool new communities that I had access to because of social media. But there are also so many dangers and there are so many ways. young people can be harmed, whether it's their sleep, their attention span, whether it's actually like cyber bullying, whether it's getting exposed to harmful content. we need to be able to educate young people on how to have these better experiences, how to navigate harmful experiences, and just how to. [00:17:00] Thrive online, and I, I'm really hopeful that greater media literacy programming will appear after these Bell develop programs have passed.
James Petrossi: So today's lesson in Leave the Feed is all about gold stars, which is really drawing our attention away from social media and to the people around us. Of people that help us, the people that uplift us. They might be family members, they might be friends, and giving them those shout outs, letting them know that they're important to us On your journey, who are some of the people in your inner circle and that you've worked with that really deserve those gold stars that have really helped nurture your progress?
Emma Lembke: Well, I always say in any interview or environment that I can I think I give my biggest gold star to my father. Think that he has been the most. Monumental positive influence in my life, period. Stop. But I think that he also, without him and his presence and without his guiding [00:18:00] wisdom and knowledge, I would not have gotten to the point of breaking and, and, and wanting to do better for myself with my social media experience because he is a very big believer and, you know. Take control over your life. Like you are the person who's going to like, uplift yourself. You are the individual who, like, he, he's very pro, you know the individual, you know, finding their own journey and I think that I realized that I wasn't doing that and social media was guiding me rather than I, me guiding it. So I think that, that, that kind of. and wisdom that he instilled in me got me to the point of having that break, which was very important for the rest of my advocacy and my journey. Other people in this space, you know, I'd say. My good friend Zaman he has done a lot, he's done much more legislation and much more legislative work than I have. I do a lot of like organizing work. I do a lot of programmatic work. But he's been in the trenches in the United States pushing for legislation. Learned so much from him on how to be a productive [00:19:00] advocate and not only be a productive advocate, how to push forward when there are setbacks, because when you're in the legislative world. Specifically in the United States of America, it can be so difficult. And it can be very, it can be very challenging to not feel the weight of every setback, but he really carries the weight of, of the movement on his, on his back, and on his shoulders. And I've been so blessed to, to be in a space and, and inhabit spaces with him and to learn from him. And then the last person I'll, I'll really call out for, for being super helpful is a woman named Nicole Gill. ran accountable tech. And accountable tech was this outstanding advocacy group that pushed to protect kids online. And they were just a force to be reckoned with. And they were kind of the first organization to. Pick up, log off and, and carry it under its wings. So she's been a mentor and a a great supporter of mine for a while. But again, I love the question 'cause I could go on for, [00:20:00] for hours about all the people that I am most thankful for, but I think the, the point of me calling out specifically those three people is to say. There is so much that goes into building a productive and a successful advocate. And it's not just the advocate, it's all the individuals that help, you know, lift them up, help like, allow them to feel comfortable speaking up and, and you know, being in the spotlight. So I, I'm very grateful for all those individuals that have gotten me to that point.
And I know that there are gonna be so many more as I continue to advocate.
James Petrossi: It's interesting with Leave the Feed. 'cause right now there's people listening that are going on a 30 day disconnection journey. Others looking just to have healthier relationships with social media. Get inspired with Gen Z thought leaders like yourself and for them. They have a community around them, but they're really learning to be their own advocate.
They're getting near the end of this journey. What's your hope or your encouragement or your advice
Emma Lembke: I would just say that [00:21:00] it's not your fault. Like I, I always say that to young individuals who I'm talking to that are struggling with their own usage. If you. Pull back the curtain. I think of it like the Wizard of Oz. If you pull back the curtain, there is so much money, so much money and time that gets poured from these companies into asking, how can I get you and all your attention?
How do I maximize your attention basically at the cost of your wellbeing. So much time and energy goes into the color of the notification that pops up when the notification pops up. How long you're scrolling, how does that scroll feel to you? How short are all the, the reels or the videos? So much goes into getting you pulled in. Don't beat yourself up for feeling that pull. Wanting to change it. you should feel empowered by the fact that you're [00:22:00] wanting to make a change. That is a huge first step. Most people don't get to that point, and I think that it's, very courageous to be able to take that step. yourself feel that, that courage. Let yourself feel that empowerment and please feel it without shame because shame should be removed from the equation. Because think about all of those neuromarketers and all of those engineers that are working behind the scenes just to get you to keep scrolling. That's what I would say. And I applaud anyone who goes on this journey. my life completely changed when I went on a journey and I, I removed myself from social media for about a month or a, a good while when I was, had that moment of realization. But it, it changed my life and I know that for so many other people going on that journey as life changing.
And I applaud you as you continue along your path.
James Petrossi: I applaud your journey. I know we first connected a few years ago. It's been amazing to see what you've accomplished. I'm curious what's next for Emma?
Emma Lembke: I moved to New York after college and I'm [00:23:00] working for an organization called the Sustainable Media Center. So they do outstanding work again in the space to protect kids online and to ask really critically about how can we rebuild the online world in a way that. Safe and healthy and sustainable. So I'm gonna keep doing that work. And then I will hopefully go get A-J-D-M-B-A somewhere along the line, some, somewhere down the line. But for right now, just wanting to continue the advocacy work.
James Petrossi: And is there a vision that you have when you think about safe social media environments for our youth? Is there a vision or a trajectory that you feel that we need to get on or other people can get behind? Or is it very broad and big and it's just chipping away one piece of block of ice at a time?
Emma Lembke: I think it's broad and big. I think that, you know, there is no silver bullet and you know, we, we wanna uplift all these efforts that are occurring simultaneously. So you've, there's there's great work being done by like mothers who are like mothers against media addiction. That's a great [00:24:00] group and, and kind of movement. You've got the youth led movement, so you have the log offs, the design it for us. That's another organization. Movements that are. for kids online safety and for just healthier habits. have the bell to bell programming, you have media literacy groups. All of these, all of these efforts need to be simultaneously encouraged. And, and I think that we need to understand that it's non-competitive people or we're not wanting to compete with one another. These groups are not, you know, extracting resources and taking stuff away from one another. This is a kind of collective action moment in time. So I'd say if you are wanting to get involved, you're wanting to see change. Get involved in one of those movements and, and push as hard as you can. If you want to help in educational spaces, go into the educational space in your, in your community and advocate for that bell to bell programming advocate for media literacy. There's so much that you can do if you wanna get involved with Gen Z advocacy.
There are so many organizations that would love to have you [00:25:00] and that would welcome you with open arms. So I think it just really is about the individual deciding and finding a lane that they care the most about and helping apply pressure because again, we need to collectively act and uplift one another and engage with one another in any way that we can.
Um.
James Petrossi: Thank you so much. Very inspiring, very uplifting, and please get involved. Check out Emma, she's got amazing things going on. I really appreciate you as a guest, as a human and all. Of the work that you're doing in digital advocacy. Thank you so much,
Emma Lembke: Well, thank you for having me.
James Petrossi: and for those of you listening, please share. Leave the Feed with a friend.
Don't be afraid to disconnect and have an epic day.