A few months ago I saw Scott Galloway’s impactful TED talk How the US is Destroying Young People’s Future — he makes some impactful points with some powerful graphs:

I then ran into this podcast (see below) interview of him, where Scott talks about how American is becoming increasingly harder for people who aren’t rich or remarkable at a young age. It’s fascinating to hear him talk about how universities are incentivized to become luxury brands (focus on scarcity) instead of providing an opportunity for people to learn, be exposed to new ideas, and possibly excel.

I also found his suggestion, when he mentors young men, to spend some time daily with strangers so interesting — I realize that in our digital world, there is so much less talking the person in line at the grocery store or at the park because at the first second of boredom, people pull out their phones.

In a recent post People Are The New Brands, Scott’s podcast co-host talks about parasocial relationships, the dramatic shift of people having fewer actual friendships and spending less time with friends, and replacing those relationships with parasocial relationships (e.g., following an influencer on a patform like Instagram, YouTube, or Tiktok; and feeling connected through these “relationships”).

The most important number is 12%. That’s the share of Americans who say they have zero close friends, up from 3% in 1990. Meanwhile, half the country says they’re struggling with loneliness. These numbers took off when Apple put computers in our pockets, and they’ve been climbing ever since.