How to Touch Grass

Nothing sucks you in quite like the internet. It seems to have a way of figuring out what you’re currently obsessed with and serving you more and more of it, whether that’s cat videos, cookie recipes, or information about your most pervasive and seemingly unshakeable anxiety. (At this point, anyone who’s never spent a late night Googling their worries should be studied by science for their willpower.) But with the rise of artificial intelligence, the internet may be fueling a different kind of engagement.

Elias Aboujaoude, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, and Ashleigh Golden, a psychologist at Stanford, recently wrote a paper arguing that the design of AI chatbots appears to encourage anxious behavior and keep people stuck in obsessive loops. One in six adults have turned to chatbots for mental-health information and advice, according to a KFF poll, and Golden cautions that “we may be encountering the perfect storm of avoidant coping behaviors and this tech that reinforces those tendencies and disorders.”

In this episode of How to Touch Grass, hosts Julie Beck and Natalie Brennan hear from Golden and Aboujaoude about how people who use AI looking for reassurance may instead find their symptoms getting worse, and what that means for an anxious nation.

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Back in the ’90s, before everyone had smartphones, were things just … better? Tech-focused nostalgia has become a potent cultural force in recent years, driving sales of “dumbphones,” iPods, CDs, and other retro technology. According to a 2023 survey, 67 percent of Americans wish they could go back to a time “before everyone was ‘plugged in.’” The psychologist behind that survey, Clay Routledge, has found that this sort of nostalgia is more than just a yearning to go backwards. “We can often feel overwhelmed in the moment and in the challenges we face today. It's hard to see past them. Nostalgia can help us step outside of that moment,” Routledge explains. Nostalgia can actually teach us how we want to live now, and in the future.

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A common piece of advice for those who are chronically online is to “go touch grass.” This upcoming season of How To, co-hosts Natalie Brennan and Julie Beck will look more closely at the often-fraught, always-changing relationship people have with technology. They’ll explore how people can be more intentional with their devices, rebuild their attention span, and find a way to thrive in this fast-paced, image-driven culture.

Episodes will feature personal experimentation and conversations with experts in anxiety, education, and new technology.

The first episode of How to Touch Grass publishes Monday, July 27, and new episodes are released every Monday for five weeks. Subscribe now.

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How should we think about aging when the impacts of climate change can make the future feel so uncertain? That’s a question Sarah Ray, professor and chair of environmental studies at Cal Poly Humboldt, has been helping her students consider. Though climate anxiety can cause some to feel overwhelmed, Ray has tips for how to minimize doom loops and inaction. How to Age Up co-hosts Yasmin Tayag and Natalie Brennan talk about how current climate concerns compare to the existential crises of previous generations, and how to practice hope during uncertain times.

Here is a link to the full poem “The Low Road” by Marge Piercy. A passage is referenced in this episode.

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In 2021 Dr. Kiran Rabheru, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Ottawa and a geriatric psychiatrist, found himself at the center of a medical debate. The World Health Organization wanted to officially designate “old age” as a disease, but with more than 40 years of work with aging populations, Rabheru saw this as another example of ageism that needed to be challenged. Dr. Rabheru talks with Yasmin Tayag about how he fought the WHO and about the impact such designations can have on research and our understanding of growing old.

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