Brian Johnson recalls a lab study where people ignored smoke when others stayed silent, using it to explain how we ignore digital technology's harm to youth. He argues we need to speak up and act collectively instead of waiting for someone else to notice.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. I typed this on a Friday morning and I had interrupted my AM meditation to make sure I captured the idea. As I was settling into my meditation, a thought from the final pages of Jonathan Haidt's powerful book the Anxious Generation bubbled up into my mind. In the book, Professor Haidt makes the case that the catastrophic rise in anxiety is and depression among the children and adolescents, and now adults of Gen Z are caused by what he calls the Great Rewiring. Now, in the final chapters of his sobering book, Haidt encourages us to take collective action to solve this crisis. Then he tells the story of a study about how people respond to crises in groups versus when they're on their own. Now, the study goes something like this. Bring people into a lab and have them sit in the waiting room. Then after a few minutes, have a strange smoke come through the vents in the ceiling. See how quickly they will get up and do something about it. Now, when the individuals are alone, 75% of them took action, with half of them leaving the room within two minutes of noticing this smoke's appearance. But when the person is in a room with other people, they will look around and see if anyone else appears concerned. And Haidt tells us that only three of the 24 students who were in that condition go up to report the smoke and only one did so within the first four minutes, even though the smoke began to obstruct everyone's vision. By then, same weird smoke, same potential danger. Basically no response when they looked around and no one else seemed concerned. As Jonathan says, and I quote, I should point out that the smoke was not smoke from a fire. It was titanium oxide used to create smoke screens. Now, this is crucial. Nobody in that room could understand what was going on. When there is ambiguity, people look to each other and to see what everyone else is doing. Those cues help define the situation. Is it an emergency if everyone else is just sitting there? Then each individual comes to the conclusion that, no, it's not an emergency. He continues by saying, the diffusion of digital technology into children's lives has been like smoke pouring into our homes. We all see that something strange is happening, but we don't understand it. We fear that the smoke is having bad effects on our children, but when we look around, nobody is doing much about it.
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And he says, the most important lesson here is to speak up. And that's today's plus one. Now, I'm not a sky is falling kind of guy, but there is a lot of smoke coming out of the vents in our society and it's time we all take the lead and do something about it. You. Yes, you need to be the one who gets up and encourages everyone else to get up and do something about these challenges today.
What's up? This is Michael, President and Head Coach at Heroic. One quick note before we go. I just think it's so amazing that Brian keeps reading all these books and distilling them into more wisdom and less time. By the way, thank you Brian for continuing to read the books distill them for us. I love not having to read the book, just getting them more wisdom and less time to the plus ones of Philosopher's Notes. And if you're into this kind of thing, expressing the best version of yourself and using your greatest gifts make a positive impact on the world. Make sure you head to Heroic Us to check out all the other resources that we have available to you. You can download a bunch of free goodies including Philosopher's Notes, masterclasses and our scientifically proven Heroic app. You can also explore advanced resources to help you go next level, including live and virtual workshops, we working one on one with a Heroic Performance coach or even becoming a certified coach yourself as you master heroic performance, the fundamentals of Coaching Excellence and Heroic Coaching prosperity. Again, head to Heroic Us to get the ancient wisdom, modern science and practical tools you need to activate your heroic potential and change the world together. And please do hit subscribe. Appreciate you have a fantastic day and see you again soon.
