I mean, your dad is a doctor and you say you grew up in Bangalore.

So he grew up in a small farming village near Bangalore and my mother grew up in Bangalore and they had an arranged marriage as people did during those times in India.

And then they made their way to the United States.

But sometimes I just say that and I then pause and realize that every step of that journey contained in that simple sentence was really hard.

Like nobody ever really finished school in the village.

Yet my dad somehow did.

No one ever went to medical school.

the

And

this social fabric is the foundation on which we build everything else.

Like our relationships are that foundation.

And when we don't have relationships with each other, then we don't know each other.

If we don't know each other, we don't care about each other.

And if we don't care about each other, we can't be invested in each other.

And so when you see the alternative, which is people trying to broker deals, you know, just based on shared incentives alone, you know, a more cerebral approach, if you will, when you see people just trying to use like force or circumstance or politics to get bills through or laws passed, you know, What you're looking at, I think, is a society that has increasingly lost that foundation and has somehow come to believe instead that these other tools can substitute for a lack of real connection.

and

Thank you.

Oh, that's such a good question, thank you.

That's a very timely question as well.

Um, I think that AI has great potential to improve our lives.

It also has great potential to harm our lives, which is why it's very important that we are thoughtful about how it's built, that we don't make the same mistakes that we made, uh, as a society with social media and don't demand sort of the research and the safety standards and guardrails that are critical as this technology rapidly develops.

And by the way, it's developing a lot more rapidly than social media did, so time is of the essence in when it comes to safety standards.

But I think when it comes to relationships, uh, it- it's interesting.

Mm.

Vivek, can you share a story, either from your time as surgeon general or maybe from your own life, that changed the way that you think about social connection and health?

Yeah.

The stories I encountered on the road during my first term as surgeon general that made me pay attention to this issue, I didn't actually come into office thinking loneliness was a public health issue or that it was a crisis in any way, shape, or form.

I knew that it wasn't a good feeling.

I had experienced a lot of loneliness as a kid who struggled in elementary school in particular with making friends 'cause I was very shy and very introverted.

I had seen loneliness in my patients as a doctor.

Even though I never learned about it in medical school, there it was in the stories of the patients that I was admitting to the hospital and seeing in clinic.

What do you think is happening there?

But no other people.

And, and, well, here's the thing.

Like we used to think about social media as being something that generated eating disorders, uh, and body dysmorphia among girls.

Well, increasingly, we're seeing that among boys too.

They-- 'cause they are seeing these exact same videos, right? And when I would do roundtables, I started to hear about this years ago from students, uh, from y-young men a-and, and boys who would say, "You know, I feel like I'm a failure." "Why do you feel like you're a failure?" "Well, 'cause I don't have a six-pack.

I don't have seven percent body fat.

I'm not lean.

But what are the actual moves that the government could take, or states or, or, or the federal government could take to kind of, uh, in your view, to kind of push back against this, this loneliness and, you know, these mental health problems around isolation?

Not to say that activism is unimportant, but the real activism is actually getting your own soul in order because that's what will scale up in my view.

Actually, one thing just to build on what Arthur said, it's interesting that this is, you're talking about a university or you're teaching and students were coming to you with these questions.

And I think that one area where we have failed students more broadly, I think not just in our universities, but in our grade schools, is we recognize that people need to be sustained in their hearts, their minds, and their souls, right? And body, mind, and spirit.

Yet we primarily cater just to the head, to the cerebral dimension.

of nurturing a human being in our educational settings.

And I actually saw that in medical training as well, that there was such an emphasis on what studies can you remember? How much can you memorize in terms of the history or in terms of research, et cetera? Can you recite it? Do you know the differential, the most exhaustive differential diagnosis for a patient's symptoms? All of that's important, by the way.

You want your doctor to be well-versed in that.

Shocking, I know.

Vivek, can you share a story, either from your time as surgeon general or maybe from your own life, that changed the way that you think about social connection and health?

Yeah.

The stories I encountered on the road during my first term as surgeon general that made me pay attention to this issue, I didn't actually come into office thinking loneliness was a public health issue or that it was a crisis in any way, shape, or form.

I knew that it wasn't a good feeling.

I had experienced a lot of loneliness as a kid who struggled in elementary school, in particular, with making friends because I was very shy and very introverted.

I had seen loneliness in my patients as a doctor, even though I never learned about it in medical school, there it was in the stories of the patients that I was admitting to the hospital and seeing in clinic.

But despite all of that, I kept thinking somehow that maybe that was just peculiar to my own experience.

What do you think is happening there?

Vivek, can you share a story either from your time as surgeon general or maybe from your own life that changed the way that you think about social connection and health?

Yeah.

The stories I encountered on the road during my first term as surgeon general that made me pay attention to this issue, I didn't actually come into office thinking loneliness was a public health issue or that it was a crisis in any way, shape, or form.

I knew that it wasn't a good feeling.

I had experienced a lot of loneliness as a kid who struggled in elementary school, in particular, with making friends 'cause I was very shy and very introverted.

I had seen loneliness in my patients as a doctor, even though I never learned about it in medical school.

There it was in the stories of the patients that I was admitting to the hospital and seeing in clinic.

What do you think is happening there?

Yeah.

... and they're by themselves."So she said, "You know, what I did is, uh, couple years ago, I started hosting a party at my house on all the major holidays, and I just post signs so that everyone knows this is happening." They feel like if they- Oh my gosh, that's so beautiful.

... don't have a place they can go, they can just come.

She didn't say this to me with any bravado or- Yeah.

... "Hey, look what I did." She just happened to mention this- Oh my gosh.

... because she was in a line, you know, that- Yeah.

... people who were, you know, who wanted to just talk for a minute.

Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Mm.

... and she only realized after her daughter took her own life, that she'd been mercilessly bullied and harassed online, and she saw just how her self-esteem had been shredded.

Here's what I would tell parents.

Number one, this is a journey that is difficult for any of us to make alone, and it's important for us to talk to each other as parents, to come together and to support each other.

Because right now, a lot of parents think that everyone else has figured it out, and they're the only ones struggling.

That is not the case.

The second thing you should know as parents about technology and social media is, delaying the use of social media for your kid as long as possible is important.

Can you take us through the science of that? And is 16, I know you said after middle school, would you say 16's the appropriate age?

Mm-hmm.

And she only realized after her daughter took her own life that she'd been mercilessly bullied and harassed online and she saw just how her self-esteem had been shredded.

Here's what I would tell parents.

Number one, this is a journey that is difficult for any of us to make alone and it's important for us to talk to each other as parents, to come together and to support each other because right now a lot of parents think that everyone else has figured it out and they're the only ones struggling.

That is not the case.

The second thing you should know as parents about technology and social media is delaying the use of social media for your kid as long as possible is important.

And that's because the adolescent brain is not the same as an adult brain.

Can you take us through the science of that? And is 16, I know you said after middle school, would you say 16 is the appropriate age?

What can parents do to do that? What are some more specific strategies they can use to reach out and connect?

connect?Yeah.

So I think the first thing is just to recognize that if you're struggling as a parent, you are not alone, and to not necessarily believe what you see online or on social media.

That's not representative of reality.

The second is to start conversations with other parents about what they may be struggling with or you may be struggling with.

I have two small kids.

They're six and eight.

Thinking particularly about parents and supporting their communities, do you have any specific ideas about how governments could intervene, specifically maybe local governments, and what they could do to build these support systems?

... seismic.

It'll be absolutely seismic and, and like, quite literally foundational, right? Because the one thing we know for sure is that at some point in our life, we're gonna be on our own, alone, like physically alone, without people around us.

And the question is: Are we comfortable with that or not? You know, when, when I was growing up, there were-- like, you just had to be comfortable with that because you would figure out how to be, 'cause that was just life.

There were times where you were just on your own waiting for a friend or waiting for the bus, you know, waiting for your, in my case, you know, your parents to pick you up from school.

Now these days, all the white space in our life is filled with our devices, right? 'Cause we can pull them out very easily and just check email, message a friend, check the news.

But it's reached a point where I think people have actually become quite uncomfortable with being alone, and there's really important stuff that happens, like, when we are alone.

Like, that's when we can reflect.

I mean, we've already touched on a lot of these ideas, but...