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The Current Transcript for December 9, 2016

Host: Nam Kiwanuka

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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You're actually looking at something quite rare because I am a millennial, computer scientist, book author standing on a TED stage and yet I've never had a social media account.

NAM KIWANUKA: If you've ever felt the itch to ditch social media, you're not alone. Cal Newport has shut off Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter in favour of what he calls “deep work.” His plea for us to deactivate or delete our online presence has sparked a lively debate both on and offline. We’ll hear that first. Then—

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I am innocent but because of what I write, because of what I'm working on, I'm already facing so much pain and so much pressure.

NK: Chang Ping's writing has been banned in China and so has he. He's been thrown in jail, exiled from his country, his family threatened and arrested. But since his days as a student in Tiananmen Square, he hasn't stopped covering and criticizing the Chinese government. My conversation with him is coming up in half an hour. And finally, today—

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My name is Justin Trudeau. My family has both had the joy and the struggles of having a mother who is bipolar.

NK: Our prime minister has been open about his mother's struggles with mental health. Now ahead of his meeting with first ministers today, mental health advocates are urging him to do more to get mental health care to those who need it most. I’m Nam Kiwanuka and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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Quit social media? Author says your career may depend on it

Guests: Cal Newport, Alexandra Samuel, Vivek Shraya

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VOICE 1: I want to post about how great this coffee is but I can’t think of a funny way to say it.

VOICE 2: Is this guy always on vacation?

VOICE 3: Costa Rica vacay.

[Sound: Camera shutter]

VOICE 4: Did you just like my post about my uncle dying?

VOICE 5: Office perk.

VOICE 6: No.

VOICE 5: Hold still. Hold still. I’m Vineing you.

VOICE 7: How did he get so many followers? He’s a dentist.

VOICE 8: Sometimes I want to move to another country where I wouldn’t have to deal with this stuff.

VOICE 9: [Speaking alternate language]

VOICE 10: Hashtag road trip dudes.

VOICE 11: Not while you’re driving, man.

VOICE 7: Is anybody even going to read this?

NK: Chances are pretty good that you're listening to this while you scroll through a social media feed full of selfies, news articles and viral videos. For many of us, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have become an inescapable part of life for work or play or both. My first guest, however, is a self-described unicorn. He's a millennial, computer scientist, an author who's never had a social media account and now he's urging others to ditch theirs. Cal Newport is an associate professor in computer science at Georgetown University. He's the author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World and he's drawing attention especially on social media for a New York Times piece he wrote with a headline: “Quit Social Media. Your Career May Depend On It.” He's in Silver Spring, Maryland. Hello.

CAL NEWPORT: Hi, hello. Thanks for having me on.

NK: Thanks for being here. I guess you didn't tweet or write a Facebook status about doing this interview.

CAL NEWPORT: Yeah, that's true. You don't have to worry about me checking my Twitter feed while we're talking.

NK: So why have you chosen not to have a social media account?

CAL NEWPORT: Well, I see it the other way around. Social media has never convinced me that it has some big positive benefit that’s worth the cost. Just like anything else in my life, I don't feel like it's my obligation to test it out and see if I like it. It's sort of the obligation of the new product or service to make a convincing case to me that I should invest in it.

NK: So you never feel left out if your friends are talking about that post on Facebook or Twitter?

CAL NEWPORT: No, I think I'm probably a lot calmer for it. It turns out if you don't have social media, you still have friends. You still know what's going on in the world. You can still do things like network and have job opportunities and sell books. The world still goes on.

NK: So why are you urging other people to quit social media?

CAL NEWPORT: Well, my argument is not necessarily that every person should quit social media but I think that we have been overemphasizing the benefits of these services and underemphasizing the cost. And if people did a real honest cost benefit analysis, I think there would be a lot more people out there that come to the same conclusion I did, which is these are not for me.

NK: What are the benefits of logging off?

CAL NEWPORT: Well, the main benefit of logging off is that you avoid the distraction that these tools build. Now these tools are engineered—especially the major services—are engineered to be addictive and distracting as possible. That’s how these companies make money. The problem is if you become addicted to this constant source of intermittently reinforced content, it becomes a Pavlovian response that at the slightest hint of boredom, you use your phone, you need the web browser. And that's going to make it difficult to concentrate deeply which is becoming almost like the key currency in an increasingly complicated knowledge economy.

NK: Cal, I want to invite two other guests into this conversation. Alexandra Samuel is a tech strategist and author of Work Smarter with Social Media. She's in Vancouver. And Vivek Shraya is an author and artist. She is with me in Toronto. Hello to both of you.

CAL NEWPORT: Hi.

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Good morning.

NK: Alexandra, what do you think of what Cal Newport is saying?

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Well, you know I'm happy to hear him say that he's not trying to convince everybody to quit social media. But my concern reading his story is that I think he's usefully giving voice to a discomfort a lot of us have about the role of social media but coming to the wrong conclusion because the fact that social media can be distracting or can be a waste of time doesn't mean that it has to be. And rather than quitting it or feeling embarrassed about the amount of time you spend on Facebook, I think it's far more useful to ask yourself how this incredibly powerful medium can actually support you in your own personal goals, in your own professional goals and in your day to day work.

NK: Alexandra, how do you use social media?

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: I use it for just about everything. And I must say, you know I'm kind of an example of the counterpoint to what Cal's arguing. My entire career was built out of social media because I started blogging just about when I finished my PhD and my work found me. I use social media to share my ideas. Through that, I found just about every professional opportunity either directly or indirectly that has come my way in the past, gosh, 15 years. And I also use it on a day to day basis to stay personally connected.

NK: So it's not affecting your productivity.

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Oh sure. It's affecting my productivity negatively and positively like just about everything.

NK: But you're still an advocate for it.

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Absolutely. And I think that's because I found ways of using it that suit my particular work style and my particular interests and that's what I encourage other people to do.

NK: I also wanted to bring Vivek into the conversation. How do you use social media?

VIVEK SHRAYA: Well, I'm an artist so I largely use social media to promote my own work as an artist and also engage with other artists and audiences.

NK: And what impact has social media had on your career?

VIVEK SHRAYA: I mean it's interesting and thinking about Cal’s article, I think had the title been “Quit Social Media. Your Mental Health Might Depend on It” or depends on it, I think I would definitely relate to that. I think that social media definitely can have an impact on my anxiety levels.

NK: How so?

VIVEK SHRAYA: Just in terms of you know just seeing the kinds of you know you wake up in the morning, you're feeling good about yourself, and then you log into Facebook and you see people saying all kinds of racist comments and you know then you sort of engage with like should I get involved? Should I not get involved? And your day sort of like slowly starts deteriorating especially as you start, you decide you are going to engage and then you start getting notifications. And yeah, there goes your day. But on the flip side, I feel like I wouldn't have a career without social media. So you know as a brown and queer artist who hasn't had a lot of mainstream exposure until the past few years—even that

I sort of had to really push for—being on MySpace in 2003 was an opportunity to reach lots of music listeners outside of Canada, outside of Toronto. I remember getting my first CD sale from Finland and that wouldn't have happened without being visible on social media.

NK: And Cal, what do you say to people who say their careers benefit from social media?

CAL NEWPORT: Well, I think that goes back to the cost benefit analysis I'm talking about and what I think is important is that people should have a clear concrete benefit they know they're going to get out of a platform before they invest their time and attention. So if you're an artist for example, who is trying to reach a broader audience or niches that are otherwise hard to reach, social media could have a massive benefit. And if you do that analysis, it makes sense. But what I want people to avoid is adopting more of what I call the “any benefit” mindset where you say I'm not quite sure what I'm going to get out of being on Facebook or Instagram but you know maybe something will come along. I think it's that type of mentality that's leading many more people to use this and actually need to be doing it. So do the analysis and be honest. And if there there's not a clear positive benefit, it's not your obligation to use the platform and find that benefit for these services.

NK: I find what you just said really interesting. So do you think that people feel obligated to be on these platforms?

CAL NEWPORT: There is. A lot of the feedback I got from the post was people coming back and saying you know this was useful because I was really struggling with the distracting properties of social media but I felt that I was somehow culturally obligated to be there. And so just to hear someone say you don't have to use these if you don't have a good reason to use it, that sounds simple but for a lot of people, especially people in my generation, that's actually a somewhat radical thing for them to hear.

NK: Well, your article is one of the New York Times’ most shared pieces. Isn't that a plus for your career?

CAL NEWPORT: I know it's interesting. I read an article specifically to spread to exactly the people who need to read it because it was made to be viral for social media. But how is that for, I guess, savvy media [unintelligible]?

NK: [laughs] Very savvy. Alexandra, have you ever felt the urge to quit social media?

ALEXANDRA SAMUE: Literally never once. Not even for a minute. And I think that speaks to the role that social media can play for those of us who are outside the corridors of kind of media access. I mean I do think it's important to acknowledge that you know Cal, you're a white guy with an academic job at a prestigious university in the middle of like the northeast corridor where stuff happens and stories are made. But speaking as somebody who's you know on the opposite side of the continent and also has some structural obstacles in my own professional networking—I'm a parent of a special needs kid and that means I can't be at every conference that might be professionally useful. You know social media, part of its power has been offering access to people who do not necessarily have the privileges or networks that would traditionally allow them to get their message out. How on earth can we tell people to stay away from a medium which could in fact prove to have such incredible powerful effects on their career even if they don't yet know what it is? And I think that being open to that serendipity, not necessarily assuming that the benefits have to be clearly mapped out, is part of the power of this toolset.

NK: Cal?

CAL NEWPORT: Well, I think if you're in a situation in which you have some evidence that Facebook posts or tweets are an effective means to circumvent some sort of [unintelligible] obstacle and makes a lot of sense to use social media. But I think it's a separate argument to say that you should experiment with any platform that's out there because you never know what those benefits might be.

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: But you know the problem with that is that you're then leaving the power of the medium entirely in the hands of the Facebook or Twitter marketing team to define what we can do with it. And in fact, many of the most exciting developments that have happened in social media have happened from people who've exploited the crevices in these platforms. I mean think of something as simple as a hashtag. A hashtag was not invented by the Twitter marketing team. It was a Twitter user, Chris Messina, who just started using the pound sign as a way of organizing conversations on Twitter and voila, we now have one of the most widely used kind of mechanisms for aggregating conversations online. And you know we certainly see in just about every political moment that there's now a conversation that evolves on Twitter. Now I mean I think there's also good reasons to argue that Twitter can be counterproductive and the conversations about the echo chamber and the way that people only hear from folks who are like them is, you know these are valid concerns.

NK: Vivek, apart from growing your career on social media, what other benefits have you experienced?

VIVEK SHRAYA: I mean one of the things that I think about a lot is that my generation is one of the—I think the first generations—to grow up with the Internet and without the Internet. So like my first e-mail account I had, like I lived you know 20 years without any social media and then I got my first e-mail account when I was 21. And so the idea of being open to experimentation—to echo what Alexandra was saying—feels really important because a lot of us, when we were joining these services, didn't really know what MySpace could be, didn't know what LiveJournal could be or Twitter could be. And then through them, one of the things that we found is A) community and B) visibility. So you know one hashtag, #TransIsBeautiful, this is a hash tag that people like Laverne Cox and you know Janet Mock use.

NK: April Reign.

VIVEK SHRAYA: Yeah. And yeah, #OscarsSoWhite.

[Crosstalk]

NK: With #OscarsSoWhite.

VIVEK SHRAYA: Yeah. So you know in terms of thinking how activism happens on social media, it feels so important to be open to that possibility because you know mainstream media, I mean certainly for me, all I see is like whiteness and so to be able to curate my feed in a way that shows me beautiful black and Indigenous and brown people of colour engaging A) creates this feeling of community and B) is a feeling of visibility and then also activism which feels really, really important.

NK: I wanted to ask you a bit about data because you were saying about your email and there's this idea that when you join Facebook obviously, you don't have to pay anything and once in a while you'll get you know a note saying, “Keep Facebook Free.” But is it really free because we're actually giving our data, all our information? Do you ever think about that? Do you ever worry about that? Alexandra?

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Oh gosh. Yeah. I mean absolutely. I have no free will anymore because all of my decisions are totally shaped by the data stream that I leave behind. I mean you know it is a huge worry and that is actually the level which I worry about it, is the extent to which our views of the world, our decisions about the world are being sculpted for us by the algorithm. And that's again, you know a story that has been told a lot since the US election because we're so aware of how Facebook is shaping our news feed.

NK: Cal, is that something that you've thought about as a deterrent for people using social media?

CAL NEWPORT: I think certainly the cost is something that comes into my equation. And for me it's not just the data, which I think is part of it, and not just the privacy that’s part of it. But it's also the toll on our ability to concentrate being something that's been underemphasized. If I could just address briefly the conversation going on before, this is something I hear a lot. I think social activism, as well as commercial brands of politicians throughout modern history have always embraced whatever communication platform is well used at the time and they always will and I think that's a good thing. But I don't think we can then make the leap that says if you aren't interested in using a communication platform that is also being used by a social activist or is being used in various experimental ways or experimental expression that you're somehow contra to those movements, you're somehow contra to the groups, that doesn't compute for me. I think for the most part, most people out there are just trying to figure out do I need to be on this thing or can I save a little time and attention?

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Yeah. I mean I think this is a case of needing to acknowledge that no one approach to social media is going to work for everybody. And my concern here is that I think it's disingenuous to position a story called you know quit social media, just a sort of opening of the door for people who really dislike it. I think that's a piece that's advocating that people step away and the reality is for many people, yes, there is a discomfort in social media but both personally, professionally and I would argue for the good of our community, it's more constructive to help people think about how to manage the problem of distraction, how to manage the problem of the anxiety that can be produced from seeing all the cool stuff your friends are doing on Facebook. And there are tactics and tools that can help you with that as simple as you know keeping a timer and seeing how much time you spend on different networks.

NK: Do you think that would work?

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: It totally works. I mean this is what I do. I mean listen, I have extreme unfollowing. If your Facebook posts make me habitually anxious and neurotic, I hide you and I never see your neurosis inducing posts again.

NK: Vivek, as our lives get increasingly more digital, how do you plan on staying balanced?

VIVEK SHRAYA: For me, I actually take social media breaks and actually advocate for social media breaks because I do think, in some ways I understand what Cal is saying in terms of distraction. So I'm currently trying to write a new book and it's really easy to just start refreshing Twitter instead of working on a sentence. So I sort of understand that standpoint. So for me, every December, which is a month that I don't have to be promoting anything, I actually deactivate Facebook and I just took Twitter off my phone. So like deleting the apps from my phone, so that way if I need to check something, I have to be at a computer to log in as opposed to just like kind of—because you don't realize how much of an addiction you have until you delete it off your phone and then you're consistently pressing the button over and over again and the app doesn't even exist anymore.

NK: Or your finger starts to cramp up.

VIVEK SHRAYA: Exactly. So I think it is about balance because I've seen the ways that social media has been extremely beneficial for me but also needing to take a step back every so often.

NK: Cal, what advice do you have for someone who wants to power off but finds it really hard?

CAL NEWPORT: Well, I mean I think it's important to recognize that you do have a variety of options and so you know what I have seen be successful—it’s actually some of the things that were just suggested. So measuring your time is a good first step. Using tools like Freedom that can actually turn off your access to these types of services for a set amount of time that you set so you can work in those times is also useful. Taking breaks is useful—and I think it's important just to add into that mix—leaving the service should be one of the options. It's almost as if that option was left off the table. I think if we put it in there, if people do this assessment of you know how much benefit am I getting or not or gaining or not gaining, people can change their usage, I think we’d have a lot more people quit. And we’d probably have a lot more people say I'm going to stay on but maybe use some of these tactics to reduce the negative impacts in my life.

NK: But can't you leave most social media places?

CAL NEWPORT: Well, you can certainly do it. But it's almost as if it's not an option. You’d be surprised. Especially when you talk to other people in my generation, it's almost as if no one told them you don't have to use it if you don't want to. It sounds obvious to us but you'd be surprised by how often people are surprised to hear that.

VIVEK SHRAYA: One of my favorite things about deleting Facebook, because I actually delete it every December, is that all of a sudden you're shown a series of photos and it says these people will all miss you. But the worst thing is they’re often people that you don't even like. You know? And it's like great.

NK: Facebook, you don't know me in real life.

VIVEK SHRAYA: And then you have to actually answer a series of questions when you delete Facebook, right? Like I didn't find it useful. I will be back and then every time you click the option, then it asks you more questions. So it is actually quite challenging like from a task perspective to delete Facebook.

NK: Even with Twitter. I was trying to delete some tweet but you can't do it. You have to do it one by one. And if you have 5,000 tweets, who has the time to go through 5,000 and delete them? Alexandra, I'd like to see if you can pitch to Cal why he should join social media. You up for it?

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Well, I will give you a serious answer to that. I think you know one of the values of social is listening to people with other perspectives and honestly if you're going to continue to beat the drum for people having more choice over how they use social and I actually think that's a great message. If you actually have some personal experience and some skin in the game and that means you know using at least a couple of the platforms that the rest of us mere mortals have to subject ourselves to.

NK: Cal, are you convinced?

CAL NEWPORT: I’m not going to sign up for Facebook tomorrow. But I will say it was a nice side effect of writing this column is that I did get to hear from a lot of people about the different ways they use these tools and the different positive benefits they get out of it, which is why I do think it's important to keep going back to do an honest analysis for yourself. And I think for a lot of people, for a lot of these very interesting reasons, they might say I’m going to still use it. But I still also hear from a lot of people who they're going to say it's just not for me right now. And I think as long as we have that voice in the conversation, we’ll probably be okay.

NK: Thank you all very much.

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Thank you.

VIVEK SHRAYA: Thank you.

CAL NEWPORT: Thank you.

NK: Cal Newport is an associate professor in computer science at Georgetown University. He was in Silver Spring, Maryland. Alexandra Samuel is a tech strategist and author of Work Smarter with Social Media. She was in Vancouver. And Vivek Shraya is an author and artist in Toronto. Now we definitely want to hear from you on this. Have you ever felt the need to quit social media? We have a poll on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC. And if you live without social media, you can send us a traditional old email through our website. Go to www.cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. The CBC News is next. I'm Nam Kiwanuka and you’re listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

Exiled Chinese journalist continues his fight for free speech

Guests: Chang Ping

NK: Hello. I'm Nam Kiwanuka and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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NK: Still to come, mental health advocates are urging the government to commit more money to treating mental illness now. That story in half an hour. But first, Chang Ping won an International Press Freedom Award for his work criticizing the Chinese government. But he can't tell his parents about it because he fears talking to them will put them in harm's way. If you've ever cried at work you may want to hold your tears next time you feel them coming. Next week on The Current, Anna Maria Tremonti will talk to researchers who believe that crying on the job could be a career limiting move. But some people believe in letting it out. Stephania Varalli is co-CEO of a company dedicated to the advancement of professional women in Canada. Here's what happened when she began crying in a meeting with one of her employees.

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We were having a conversation sort of about her career path and she had some concerns about her role and there were things that you know I had done in my own role that I knew you know I wish I could have done differently but it’s just the reality of the business. I didn't really have control over it. And I felt so bad about this lack of ability to help her in her own role that I was brought to tears. And it was a moment of just absolute sort of frustration and I felt sort of slightly helpless and couldn't stop it. And I would say that my immediate feeling afterwards was oh my god, I shouldn't have done that. But in talking to her about it, I mean I was open and she said no, I think it just shows that you care and shows that you're human. And she didn't think less of me because of it. So I'm actually glad that I did it in the end because I think she was able to really authentically see that I wasn't just making it up, that I really did want to do everything that I could for her. So it allowed me to I guess come across as someone who was really authentically in her corner.

NK: Tune into The Current next Tuesday to find out what the career fallout can be of letting the tears fall on the job. And if you've ever cried at work, we want to hear from you. Drop us a line through our website. Go to www.cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. And now, our story about a Chinese journalist exiled for upholding principles of free speech and democracy.

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[Sound: Protesters yelling and chanting]

1989. Students across China rise up demanding freedom but the government cracks down.

[Sound: Shots fired]

Scores are killed. Thousands arrested in cities across China.

NK: The Tiananmen Square massacre was a pivotal moment in Chinese history. At the time, Chang Ping was one of the thousands of students taking part in the protests that was sweeping his country. It landed him in jail for a month but Chang Ping was not deterred. He went on to become a journalist covering and criticizing the Chinese government and it didn't like what he wrote. He was fired from several newspapers and was eventually forced to live in exile in Germany where he continues to write about China today. But the government is still watching him. Earlier this year, it arrested his family over something he wrote. Last week in Toronto, he accepted the International Press Freedom Award from Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. That clip you just heard is from a video by the CJFE about his life and work. Chang Ping joined me in our Toronto studio earlier this week. We spoke through an interpreter. Here is our conversation. Hello.

CHANG PING: Hello.

NK: When you were living in China, the government took exception to your work. What was the focus of your journalism?

CHANG PING: [Through translator] I've been working in China for more than 20 years as a journalist and editor and also as a columnist. Most of the things I write is about current affairs and most of the articles are right to call for freedom of speech, social justice, human rights, the development of civil society. And all these topics and subjects are quite sensitive to the Chinese government which is not quite willing to let the public to freely discuss all these issues and they still like to take all these discussions under their own control. For me, I think free speech is the cornerstone of society's development. And I think it's my defiance in my writing that has really irked the Chinese government.

NK: What were some of the ways the government let you know they didn't like what you were doing?

CHANG PING: First they would require the media, the organizations which hire me to terminate my contract. And another way is to ban the media to publish what I write, even though I don't believe that and these kinds of measures would work for all media all the time. But later on, the Chinese media would conduct a sort of self-censorship and they would just censor whatever content that I write. And in this way, I was pretty much deprived of all opportunity to publish all I write.

NK: You moved to Germany in 2011. Why did you leave China?

CHANG PING: In 2011, I was a visiting scholar in the Baptist University in Hong Kong and during that time, I actually went back to Guangzhou every weekend to visit my family there. There was one weekend, before I went back to Guangzhou, I got a phone call saying that I shouldn't go back. I was hesitant. I was still thinking that I wouldn't believe this were true. But when I was still hesitating, I got an invitation from France to visit there. So I went to Paris and during my visit to Paris, I learned that police in China went to my home and that's why I have learned it was dangerous for me. And later, I learned that during the Jasmine Revolution, many artists, civil rights activists were arrested including artists like Ai Weiwei and Teng Biao. And these people were arrested and supposedly tortured and I learned that my name was also on the list. And that's why I later went to Germany. Further, most recently in the past March, the Chinese police kidnapped my family members back in China. So that's why I know that I can't go back to China.

NK: What happened when the police kidnapped your family?

CHANG PING: For many years because of my writing, I'm actually fully aware of the type of danger I am in, the type of pressure that my families are facing and this has always been my worry. And in the past March, there was a discussion about an anonymous open letter to call for the resignation of the current Chinese leader, President Xi Jinping. And nobody really knew who actually wrote this letter and the Chinese government wanted to investigate to find out who did this. And many people got interrogated and that was also the time when my father's 70th birthday coming up. And this is a big celebration for my family. They prepared a big banquet and invited many guests. I was hoping that at least for this occasion, the Chinese government wouldn't really harass my family right on the day of my father's birthday. But it was exactly on the day of my father's birthday that they came, took my family into custody on the so-called charges of causing wildfire because they used fireworks. So that was the excuse. They took my family in. But during the interrogation, all they asked is all about where I was, what I was doing. So all the questions is geared towards all about me.

NK: How did you react when you found out what happened?

CHANG PING: It's actually pretty common for the Chinese government and the police to put pressure on the dissidents in exile overseas by harassing their families. And many of them are facing so much pressure they somehow have to give in. But this time, my response was different. I called this kidnapping and I actually made this thing public and in fact, from what I have learned, they were not really harsh physically on them. They were just interrogating them. And that's why the Chinese police couldn't understand why I called this kidnapping. They thought they were pretty nice. But for me, I'm overseas and to use my family to demand me to withdraw my article, to delete my posting from online, such behavior is obviously kidnapping. So that's why I call it kidnapping and I have made it public and within a few days, the New York Times, the Guardian in the UK, Mirror in Germany, they all published about what I have made public about what the Chinese police have done, which has created quite a bit of pressure on them. I have always been very cautious to contact my family or to let my family know about my contacts because I'm fully aware the kind of work I do. So usually my family members, they have no idea how to contact me. It's only I myself call them and it's actually not that often. So really, my families, when they are detained by police, they are truly honestly unable to contact me. They don't know how to find me. And so by the fact that I noticed that my brother under police custody that was trying to contact me, this is obviously the police themselves. So I made a public announcement to cut off all ties, all connections with my families that’s making them completely useless hostages. And after a number of days, the Chinese police did realize that using my family to threaten me just wouldn't work. So after posting quite a big amount of bond, they were released on bail.

NK: So you haven't spoken to your family since then?

CHANG PING: This was actually a decision much tougher than I originally thought. I actually didn't make any contact with my family since then. Only through indirect sources I have learned that the police have been actually visiting my families and actually been watching them. And there was once that my mother was ill pretty badly and I was very worried to the point that I almost gave in. I almost wanted to pick up the phone and call my mother. And in the last minute, I realized that this was exactly what the Chinese police wanted. So I didn't make the call.

NK: Some would say that you chose a journalistic principle over your family. Do you see it that way? And why did you make that choice?

CHANG PING: Well, I think freedom of speech is not just something for a journalist to work on. Freedom of speech is about everyone including my families. If I gave in, that wouldn’t—it's actually not making it any better for anyone and he's not making it any better for my family. And I know my families. They are completely innocent and even I myself, I am innocent but because of what I write, because of what I'm working on, I'm already facing so much pain, so much pressure. And my families, they're not even in the journalistic profession and they face such pressures, such disruption of their work and life. They're even more innocent. I do feel very, very sorry for them. But giving in is actually what a dictatorship wants and by giving in, it actually only strengthens such dictatorship and it wouldn't improve on anything. It wouldn't make anyone's life better.

NK: When you first left China, did you know you wouldn't be returning?

CHANG PING: Not at all because at that time, I was still a visiting scholar in Hong Kong. I regularly go back to mainland China for visits. I wasn't prepared at all to really leave China and not going back. So I didn't take any of my books or anything. And at the time, I was also hoping that after the Jasmine Revolution, things will kind of cool down a little bit. I could still have a chance to go back to China but this didn't happen.

NK: You have a young daughter. How did you explain it all to her?

CHANG PING: It is the toughest thing for me right now. My daughter often asks me why we cannot go back to China and especially she asked me that grandpa and grandma are getting really old. And just because my daughter goes to Chinese school every weekend in Germany and many of her friends, they often go back to China and visit during winter break or during the summer break. So in the most recent break, we just couldn't take her back and I find that I have this very urgent need, a very pressing need to really explain everything to her. But how can I explain such a thing to a seven year old? And my daughter even asked me that we can't go back to China, is it because something I did wrong? That I'm being punished for something what I do? This makes me feel very much in pain because I am fully aware that exile is punishment. And exile in ancient times is part of the law in many countries. But what we see here is that the Chinese government, even though the formal exile in terms of law has been abolished even during the late Qing dynasty, the imperial period, but the current Chinese government still practices this very outdated, very savage type of punishment. And this kind of practice should really be abolished. In a museum in Hamburg, there is a big portrait, a photo of me and there is a caption explaining why I'm staying in Germany and why I'm unable to go back to China. I took my daughter there and let her see that photo and let her see the text. I was hoping to sort of let a third party to let her know, let her get the idea. She saw that and she didn't say a word. And I was very cautious. I didn't ask for anything for two months. So two months later, I very cautiously tried to ask her did she get the idea? Obviously she still didn't.

NK: You've just been awarded the International Press Freedom Award here in Toronto. Could accepting an award like this affect your family?

CHANG PING: Well, first of all, I'm very honoured to be awarded, which is a great acknowledgment and encouragement of my work. In my thank you speech, I said that I am happy but at the same time also worried because many Chinese who have been awarded internationally because of their work for freedom, for democracy, for peace, many of them gave up the award under pressure and even pressured to denounce the awarding organizations. I didn't do that. I decided to accept this award but I could only hope that this wouldn't impact what's happening to my family in China. But so far, I haven't heard anything from them yet.

NK: You now cover China for Deutsche Welle in Germany. How difficult is it to cover China from outside the country?

CHANG PING: Well, right now I am a free writer. I report for Deutsche Welle as well as write for newspapers in Hong Kong and Taiwan. I think being in a free society, I do enjoy a lot of the freedom of what I write about and I also benefit a lot for the very easily accessible, very rich research materials that I can get to help my writing. But at the same time, I always call caution myself that I have to use the freedom of press very carefully with the utmost care.

NK: Do you want to go back to China one day?

CHANG PING: Yes, of course. And this is actually my freedom. I have the freedom to go out of a country to go back to my country to travel. And this is part of a person's basic rights and I would hope that one day I could get it back.

NK: Thank you for being here.

CHANG PING: Thank you.

NK: Chang Ping, a Chinese journalist joined me in our Toronto studio earlier this week. He lives in Germany but he was in Canada to accept the International Press Freedom Award from Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. We asked for a response from the Chinese embassy. We did not receive a reply. You're listening to the Friday edition of The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Nam Kiwanuka.

SOUNDCLIP

Well, personally I've had my share of being subjected to verbal abuse—swearing, cursing. And in addition, I've had the unfortunate call such as what colour panties am I wearing? I've had co-workers who are of colour who have been addressed by callers as, “Thank God I'm speaking to a white person,” numerous, numerous scenarios of sexual or racial harassment, ethnic or homophobic slurs. It goes on and on.

NK: That's call centre worker Michelle Dey describing some of the abusive calls she has heard on the job. Yesterday we explored a new campaign to protect phone agents from verbal abuse while working. Then we heard from you. Oliver Bertin of Toronto sent us this suggestion: “How about a follow up dealing with call centres and why they are allowed to harass us ten times a day despite the CRTC’s do not call list? There's no excuse for abusive, sexist, racist comments but I sure get tired of these endless calls.” Paulina Bolduc of Gatineau, Quebec said she experienced abuse in her time as a call centre agent: “Most of the abuse stemmed from the fact that I speak with an accent. There were times when callers told me to get someone who speaks English even though I was speaking it. I am so sad that people still think that there is nothing wrong with being rude to another human being who is trying to help them.” Dianne Ritchie in Burnaby, BC has worked in two call centres. She writes: “I have never been expected to listen to abuse during my calls. I have always been fully supported to firmly and politely terminate the call after attempts to de-escalate the situation have failed. Shame on the employers who force their employees to listen to this type of talk. Maybe they should spend some time on the phones themselves.” You can always add your voice to any story you hear on The Current. You can find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cbcthecurrent or tweet us @thecurrentCBC or e-mail us through our website. Go to www.cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. I’m Nam Kiwanuka and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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Canadian mental-health care advocates urge government for greater funding, now

Guests: Beth Nowosad, Dr. David Goldbloom, Dr. Karen Cohen

NK: Hello. I'm Nam Kiwanuka and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Through much of my life, we didn't really know she was bipolar. And then as we, as she became aware of it, we started dealing with it as a family. You know there were moments where she was in total denial that there was any sort of challenge. But you know we've gotten to a point now, over probably 20 years of active struggling to a point where I am so proud of my mom.

NK: That was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaking about his own family's experience with mental illness and his mother's bipolar disorder. Today, the provincial and territorial premiers are meeting with the prime minister and sitting down to dinner with him later this evening. And although climate change will be high on the agenda of the First Ministers’ Meeting, the premiers are eager to talk about health care funding. Members of a coalition called the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health are urging the leaders to commit more resources to treating mental illness immediately. Coming up, we'll hear from two mental health service providers. But first, I'm joined by someone who knows just how difficult it can be for some Canadians to access mental health care. Beth Nowosad is a 23-year-old mental health activist who works with the New Mentality Network's Youth Action Committee where she advocates for improvements to youth mental health care. And she is in Ottawa. Hello.

BETH NOWOSAD: Hi, Nam.

NK: Before talking about the barriers young people face getting proper mental health care, I want to talk about some of the ones you encountered as a teenager. What kinds of problems were you dealing with in high school?

BETH NOWOSAD: In high school, I was dealing with a lot of anxiety. My stress had become so much more than just regular school stress. It was everything in my life was causing me great anxiety which then led to depression, a lot of because I was very hard on myself as a teen. I still am as a young adult. And the pressures teenagers face today with trying to figure out where they're supposed to be in life was all a lot for me to handle at the time.

NK: How serious was it?

BETH NOWOSAD: It wasn't at the beginning. Because I didn't get the care I needed, it started a lot in grade 10 when I started to self-harm.

NK: When you say self-harm, what do you mean?

BETH NOWOSAD: I started to cut my skin. So that's when my mom and my friends really saw that I needed help. So in grade 10, that's when I went to go see my first counselor who was not the right fit for me. And because I was so young, it was the first time I had been in the system. I thought that was the one and only counselor for me so I lost a lot of hope in the system and in my family at that point because they felt like they had let me down. So I regressed a lot more and started hiding a lot of my anxiety.

NK: What do you mean when you say that? Like what happened when you didn't get the support you needed?

BETH NOWOSAD: I remember telling my mom I was fine and I was good so that she would stop worrying about me because I knew I wasn’t. I was still dealing with a lot of suicidal ideations. My anxiety at school was unmanageable. My panic attacks were getting out of control.

NK: I'm sorry.

BETH NOWOSAD: Oh, that's okay.

NK: How did you end up in the emergency room?

BETH NOWOSAD: That was in Grade 12. So I had spent four to five years of being extremely anxious and the past couple of years of being really depressed. It was in December of my grade 12th year when you're really supposed to start getting your life together and start applying to colleges and universities and it was all way too much for myself. So I tried to end my life with a lot of pills that my mom—because my mom has a lot of mental health issues as well. She had a lot of pills available in the house that she never thought would be an issue with me. [clears throat] Excuse me. And ended up being the thing that I used to try and my life.

NK: And once you were in the hospital then, were you able to get in-patient care?

BETH NOWOSAD: I was. I was fortunate enough. My case was serious enough. I spent two nights in the emergency room and then two nights in pediatrics and then I remember a child and youth worker coming to me while I was on pediatrics and asking me if I wanted help and was very great about it being my decision. So I did go into the child and youth mental health ward for five days and there, I was overwhelmed by how much support I was given. I had access to mental health nurses and doctors, a psychiatrist, a social worker, child and youth workers, doctors. It was more than I had ever had before in my life. Very overwhelming.

NK: But then you had to leave the hospital.

BETH NOWOSAD: Yes.

NK: And what problems did you face after you left?

BETH NOWOSAD: So what they don't tell you in the hospital when you're super supportive and you're making all of these life changes is that the rest of the world doesn't change with you. So when I was released, it was—I almost got worse than I was when I first went in because of that initial shock of nothing else had changed.

NK: Because you—I guess you kind of let your guard down.

BETH NOWOSAD: Exactly. I finally started to figure out who I was or where I wanted to go. And then I was put back into this society where I had all of these labels and still had all of these responsibilities.

NK: Were you able to get help after at all?

BETH NOWOSAD: That's when starting to wait for my mental health services really started. The hospital informed me that I was being put on a waiting list for child and youth services. At the time, that waiting list was six months long and I had four months until I was turning 18 years old so I would no longer be eligible once I was at the top of that list. And that they would not put me on the adult list until I was 18 and could do it myself. They would not allow my mom to do it at the time and because I was still 17, they wouldn't allow me to do it. I was told this at the hospital and again at our community mental health resource centre.

NK: And your dad had benefits so you were able to get access to more treatment.

BETH NOWOSAD: I was. So we were able to go to a counselor through my dad's benefits. Unfortunately when we went to the first intake meeting, the counselor was actually a financial planner and had absolutely no idea how to help my family or myself with the struggles we were dealing with. So that was kind of the third strike that the system had with my family.

NK: The prime minister and the premiers are meeting today. What do you think they should know about barriers to getting mental health care?

BETH NOWOSAD: They should know that there's so many more barriers than we think. And heaven forbid, you add you are a person of colour or a person of the LGBT community, which I am, a person of lower financial standing, which I was, trying to find paid help was very, very difficult for my family and we had to give up a lot of things so that they could afford me going to see a counselor.

NK: What about barriers for teens and children that they face specifically?

BETH NOWOSAD: Specifically that they don't know. A lot of children and youth and a lot of families just don't know what resources are out there and that is a massive barrier. System navigation is huge especially in Ontario right now that there are quite a few great programs out there. Unfortunately there's not the money to let them advertise it. Not a lot of people know of all the great resources we do have in Ontario.

NK: As an adult, do you feel like you have access to the mental health care you need?

BETH NOWOSAD: As an adult, I know—because I've graduated from the child and youth worker program—I know professionally how to get the help and access services. Personally, I find it really, really hard to actually do as there's so much stigma still around mental health. And now that I've come out of the system once, I'm feeling this big stigma that I don't want to go back into it. I don't want to admit to myself that I'm at that low point again, which I know a lot of people struggle with.

NK: But I'm really glad that you're here to talk to us.

BETH NOWOSAD: Thank you.

NK: And I hope you can get the help that you need.

BETH NOWOSAD: Thank you.

NK: Beth Nowosad is a youth mental health activist in Ottawa. My next two guests have some thoughts about what they'd like to hear during the first minister's discussions, especially when it comes to mental health. Dr. Karen Cohen is a psychologist and the chief executive officer of the Canadian Psychological Association. She's in Ottawa. And with me in our studio is Dr. David Goldbloom. He's a psychiatrist, senior medical adviser at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health and former chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada. Hello to both of you.

KAREN COHEN: Good morning.

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: Good morning, Nam.

NK: I wanted to start with you, David here. Dr. Goldbloom. What do you think about what we just heard from Beth?

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: I wish I could tell you that her story was unique or an outlier. I mean obviously it's unique to her own experience, but the problems that she encountered are encountered all too often for young people often going through their first encounter with some type of mental illness or mental health problem. And really, there are barriers that would be unacceptable for any other form of illness or suffering in our society.

NK: And Karen, how common would you say Beth's experience is?

KAREN COHEN: I completely agree with David. I think one of the things Beth’s story highlights for us is how important it is to deliver care early and to give people support. If they get to the event where they do need to be hospitalized, we need to integrate service and support in communities. We have treatments that work and unfortunately in our communities, we are not making them accessible to people who need them.

NK: David, as someone working on the frontlines, how would you describe the current state of mental health care in this country?

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: Nowhere near where it needs to be for a country of our wealth, of our resources, of our knowledge base and of the skill of our professionals.

NK: How does it compare to other countries?

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: Well, we know in Canada that we dramatically underspend in terms of our percentage of health dollars that go to mental health. Between six and seven per cent of health dollars in this country go to mental health and other jurisdictions, it can be anywhere from 11 to 13 per cent. So we are not investing in the mental health of our citizens. We're not leveraging the full talent pool that exists. And we're also not leveraging research and innovation as well as we can to come up with new models of delivering mental health care.

NK: What are you hoping that the first ministers achieve at this meeting in Ottawa?

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: Well, you know I think everybody in the mental health community in this country has great hopes and high expectations for what's going to happen. Now, I think it's fair to say that mental health is no longer a politically partisan issue. People of all political stripes see this as an important issue. And so I think there's an unprecedented opportunity for collaboration and consensus to improve the funding that exists for mental health care and to broaden the net of resources, particularly for people in the community to be able to access mental health care.

NK: And Karen, what would you like to see in the new health accord?

KAREN COHEN: Yeah. I would add to that. It is a matter of funding and how funding dollars are directed but it's also a matter of looking at how we fund and deliver care. So for example, much of the non-medication, non-pharmacological treatment—psychotherapy, psychological treatments—are delivered in communities and our public health care systems don't fund them. Our private health care insurance plans have caps on coverage that are too low to deliver clinically meaningful amounts of service. So my hope is that we don't just grow the good things we have. We also think very carefully how to fund what we know works and psychological treatments, psychotherapies are among those and we need to figure out a better way of getting them to people who need it.

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: And I think just to amplify what Karen has said, because I do agree with her fully on this, we don't have to make big discoveries because they've been done in other countries. In the United Kingdom through the National Health Service, there's a program called “Improving Access to Psychological Therapies,” which has been a massive public investment—not a private investment, a public investment—that has improved access dramatically for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. So there are lessons to be learned from Australia, from the United Kingdom, that I think could be adapted to our health care system.

KAREN COHEN: The Canadian Psychological Association a couple of years ago commissioned a group of health economists to look at the landscape in Canada and say if we were to make psychological treatments more accessible, what would it look like and what would it cost? And one of those recommendations is exactly adapting the program David talks about from the IAPT which is showing wonderful results. Forty-five to 60 per cent of people in recovery. Tens of thousands of people off disability. We know what works. It's time to deliver it.

NK: Has this been suggested? Is there a reason why we haven't adapted it?

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: Well, you know we have a national mental health strategy that was developed and released in 2012 by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. And all of the things we're talking about now and in terms of improving access to psychological treatments, improving access to care in general, innovating, developing new research pathways and increasing the level of funding, all of those were well articulated in the mental health strategy. But it is time to move from talk to action.

KAREN COHEN: And one of the things we tried to achieve with the report we commissioned is actually to show what the action could look like. And so yes, we have been talking to government about here's some ideas. Here's some ways you can do it to move forward.

NK: And Karen, I'm really curious about this. How much access to psychologists do most Canadians have?

KAREN COHEN: Well, it kind of depends on who you are. One of the challenges—

NK: What does that mean?

KAREN COHEN: Well, one of the challenges that's happened in public institutions across the country is they face their own budget pressures. When I graduated, many of my colleagues went to work in the public sector. Now more and more are going to work in the private sector and if you're a psychologist working in the private sector, your services aren't covered by our public plans. So either you have to pay out of pocket or you rely on private insurance.

NK: Well, where do you think that the government should focus health care dollars to get the most return?

KAREN COHEN: I think we have to start delivering the care that we need rather than funding providers. We need to fund what people need.

NK: What do you think, David?

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: I would agree with Karen. The solution is not simply dumping more money into the system. And you know if we look at the lessons learned from the 2004 health accord, which was the fix for a generation as it was called, funding levels did go up substantially. But without fundamental transformation of how services are delivered, that money will kind of disappear if we just keep doing what we're doing and spend more money on it. It has to be a bigger system change than that. You know there's a program going on right now that's targeted at young people. A research initiative that's co-funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the Graham Boeckh Foundation in Montreal—a project called Access, which is now going to be running in six provinces and territories about developing storefront youth mental health services—not hospitals, not traditional clinics, not private offices but youth friendly places where kids can walk in and immediately be able to talk to someone in an environment that’s stigma free and friendly.

NK: And also eliminating the need for a referral or a family doctor.

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: Totally eliminating the need for a referral. And this is really based on a model pioneered in Australia called Headspace where they have about 95 of these storefront youth mental health services across Australia. Those are the kinds of system changes that we need to see happening.

NK: We asked for an interview with the Health Minister Jane Philpott and her parliamentary secretary but neither were available. I do have a clip to play of the minister from October. She was asked in question period if the government would invest more in mental health. Here's what she had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

This is about doing the right thing for Canadians. This is about good public policy. I am very committed to the matter of mental health care. I have a mandate to make sure that Canadians have better mental health care. But I also have a responsibility to make sure that when we invest in mental health care, when we invest in home care, when we invest in palliative care, that Canadians will see that they actually get better access to care.

AMT: Karen, what do you take from those comments?

KAREN COHEN: I think that there certainly is a commitment and a recognition that if we’re going to put more dollars in, we want to put more dollars into where the gaps are and mental health is certainly one of those. I'm quite optimistic that that's widely appreciated. I think the devil's in the details. It’s how are we going to make that happen?

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: But I think it's also worth pointing out when the minister of health says it's part of her mandate around mental health, in fact I believe eight different cabinet ministers in their mandate letters from the prime minister had mental health included.

KAREN COHEN: Absolutely.

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: And that’s because mental health is not limited to the health portfolio. That the consequences of mental illness for the Canadian workplace, for the Canadian Armed Forces, almost any stratum of Canadian society that you want to examine, the consequences are profound. They're significant. They’re personal and they’re financial. And so this is about not simply doing the right thing for Canadians. It's about doing the smart thing for Canadians and for the governments of Canada.

NK: And of course, there's the huge ripple effect, right?

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: Immense.

NK: So the health minister has talked about there being strings attached to health care dollars. Provinces may be required to spend on mental health. What do you make of that, David?

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: Well, look. This is the classic dance that happens in our constitutional framework between the federal government and the provinces. And the provinces rightly say health care is our jurisdiction. It's our single biggest budget item. But then they turn to the federal government for increases in transfer payments so that there is a certain amount of healthy tension in a democracy around how funds are used. There's also a certain amount of political posturing that goes on in this sort of public dance. But behind the scenes, I'm very much struck by the fact that all governments at all levels are committed to improving mental health care for Canadians. So this seems to me like one of those pristine opportunities for consensus and collaboration.

KAREN COHEN: I would just add to that. I think what all of us have to do and by that I mean all the stakeholders in health—people living with mental health issues, families, communities, funders, private, public, government—we need to keep our eye on what's really important, which is making care accessible and focus more on where we want to get and how to get there and less on you know the particular interests and what's the best way to do it.

NK: I wanted to follow up on the provinces. How broadly do the mental health needs in each province differ across the country? David?

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: Well, I think some provinces have a higher degree of a rural population, for instance. And so that access in that context may involve more leveraging of technology. Now I happen to do six new televideo assessments every week to small communities in Northern Ontario and rather than fly into those communities. I can instantly be there through televideo and we've brought down waiting lists in those northern communities dramatically in terms of access to service. And there are a number of psychologists who are also I know leveraging that technology to improve access but needs will vary from province to province. But I have to say, the themes as you look across provinces are the same. That mental health problems and mental illnesses tend to have their emergence in adolescence and young adulthood. And intervening early, as Karen said, can make a profound difference to the outcome five years later but also to the experience of that individual and his or her family at a time of great need.

NK: Now Karen, the prime minister's mother, Margaret Trudeau, has been very open about her illness and the prime minister's wife Sophie has talked about dealing with an eating disorder. Do you think his personal connection to this issue could make a difference?

KAREN COHEN: You know I think when we have lived experience—and one in five means virtually everyone because you know it affects either you or someone you know or someone you've talked to for absolute certain—it deepens our understanding of what an issue is for sure. It's a complex issue. Very often people dealing with mental health problems and disorders, for some, you know they may be resolved fairly quickly. For others, they manage it over the course of the lifetime. They need a team of services and supports. There's no single medication or single psychological treatment or therapy that's going to address any particular problem in and of itself. There's a need for peer support, education, support in schools, medication, psychotherapies. Really we need—it's an integrated solution that we need.

NK: And David, how important is this moment when it comes to advancing mental health care in Canada?

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: I do think it's a once in a generation opportunity. All of the forces seem to be converging. The powerful investment by our current government in the cause, the readiness of the provinces to do something different and better, and also, let's acknowledge the public awareness, which is greater now than it has ever been. Whether it's through Bell Let's Talk Day or other initiatives, there is a greater level of public discussion than I've seen in my 30 years in working in the field.

KAREN COHEN: And David makes a really good point. In terms of increased awareness, the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health, the Mental Health Commission have done a great job with that. It's now time to walk the talk. If we have more people talking about what they need and asking for it, we need to make good on delivering it now.

NK: Thank you both for your insight and adding on to this conversation. We appreciate you being here.

KAREN COHEN: Thank you so much.

DAVID GOLDBLOOM: Thank you.

NK: Dr. Karen Cohen is a psychologist and the chief executive officer of the Canadian Psychological Association. She was in Ottawa. And Dr. David Goldbloom is a psychiatrist and senior medical adviser at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health. He was with me in our Toronto studio. Now we want to hear from you. What barriers have you faced while looking for the mental health care you need? Tell us. You can find us at Facebook at www.facebook.com/cbcthecurrent or tweet us @thecurrentCBC. You can email us through our website. Go to www.cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact us link. While you're there, check out pictures, links and download the podcast. It's all at www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. The Daily Show host Trevor Noah curates a q block party taking you on a musical tour of Soweto, the South African township just outside Johannesburg where he grew up. And if you missed Anna Maria’s conversation with Trevor Noah earlier this week, they talked about politics in the US right now but mainly he told stories about his upbringing in South Africa. You can still listen on our website, www.cbc.ca/thecurrent, download The Current podcast or hear it on the free CBC Radio app. Now, I began the program with a lively debate on the case for and against social media. We talked about the sometimes addictive pull of our smartphones. Well, comedian Louis CK wants to keep it all away as far from his children as possible. So we'll give him today's last word. I’m Nam Kiwanuka. Thanks for listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

You know I think these things are toxic especially for kids. It's just this thing. It’s bad. They don't look at people when they talk to them and they don't build the empathy. You know kids are mean. And it's because they're trying it out. They look at a kid and they go, “You're fat.” And then they see the kid's face scrunch up and they go, “Ooh, that doesn't feel good to make a person do that.” But they got to start with doing the mean thing. But when they write, “You're fat,” then they just go, “Mmm. That was fun. I like that.”

[Sound: Laughter]

“That tasted good.” Yeah, exactly. You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That's what the phones are taking away—is the ability to just sit there like this. That's being a person, right? No one can—they've got to—you've got to check because you know underneath everything in your life, there's that thing. That empty, forever empty. So that's why I don't want to get a phone for my kids.

[Sound: Laughter]

[Music: Ending theme]

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December 9, 2016 full episode transcript

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