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All restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. We have had our families break down. We don't know our neighbours. We don't have communities. So we don't have any of these anchors. And that is why I think when the social media platforms came in, they really destroyed young women because they offered substitutes and simulations of these things that we didn't have in the first place. That was author Freya India discussing her new book, Girls, Generation Z and the commodification of everything. India argues that the deeper story is how technology, social media and modern consumer culture have transformed girls from people into products and turned nearly every aspect of adolescence into something to be bought, sold, measured and monetized. Freya joins the podcast today to discuss her new book and the broader issues facing girls today. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. This is a weekend episode of Morning Wire. 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Joining us now to discuss the book is author Freya India. Freya thanks for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. Now the title of your book is Girls with a little trademark symbol. What does that symbol represent and when did you start to feel that girls were being turned into products rather than just growing up? Yeah, I wanted to basically have some kind of concept for how radically different girls experience the world today and see themselves versus previous generations. And my argument in the book is yes, that we've become something more like products. And honestly, I just felt that way growing up. I felt that so much of my anxiety was to do with marketing myself online, marketing my relationships, basically figuring out all of the stress of growing up but doing it publicly on Instagram. Now, you make an important distinction in the book that girls have always struggled with insecurity and fitting in of course every female listener and probably most male listeners will agree with that. Just the challenge of finding your place in the world as you grow up. What do you think makes the experience of growing up today fundamentally different than what previous generations dealt with? I think mostly we're performing everything for other people. So we're performing our first relationships, our first crushes, even if we have a heartbreak and a breakup, we're having to post that online and kind of manage our reputation and our image. And we're doing this from a very young age from puberty. And so sometimes people say to me, why do young women make these certain decisions? Why do girls behave this way? And I think a lot of the time it really makes sense if you think about where we've grown up. We've grown up on these platforms where we're being rated and reviewed by other people all of the time and that influences how we view ourselves and what we value. And it influences our future as well, what decisions we make, the relationships we have. It's all to do with performing for other people. And I think that it might look vain to older generations and to men, but I think for women it really is insecurity and it's an exhausting way to live. Now a lot of people are going to point to smartphones and social media and say, well, there you go. There's the cause. It's not rocket science. But you argue that those technologies are only part of the larger story. What aspects do you think people are missing? So I think really two things happened to my generation. So decades before the smartphone, we were having so many of our foundations and our grounding being taken away. And so our families were falling apart. We had collapsing communities. We were less religious in previous generations. And so I think we had so little to hold on to. And then when social media platforms came along, they provided these perfect simulations of things that we'd never experienced in the first place. And so our first experience of community was on Instagram or our first experience of relationships was from online porn. And so I think we had this vacuum that companies were ready to feel and exploit. Now one theme throughout the book is that industries increasingly are profiting from girls insecurities, whether it's beauty or wellness or therapy or just social media apps in general. When did you start to suspect that some of these institutions that were actually claiming to help young women were also benefiting from their distress? I think because, like I said, it was a lot of simulations being sold to us. And I almost just started to realize that this was not the real thing. They're actually bad incentives with this new version. So for example, the therapy companies were almost offering a replacement for friends and family. They were saying that they could give us advice through coming of age. They could help us with dating. They could do all of these things that parents used to do. And all throughout the book, I talk about these companies that use the language of loneliness and belonging because they know that's what young girls and young men are feeling. They really desperately want to belong somewhere. And so we have social media companies and porn companies in the mental health industry all offering their alternatives to human connection. People really underestimate how much young people think that their problems can be solved through professional intervention or even medication. And so I think a lot of the institutions and the foundations we spoke about that have fallen apart or stepped back, we've replaced them with professionals and experts. And so you have young people who have been put through so much, so much change in the world and then are thinking that they're the problem and getting diagnosed with a disorder. So I think it really is the worst two things happening at the same time where young people are really suffering, but then they're being told that they're suffering because they think wrong with them. Now, the book talks a lot about loneliness and disconnection. What do you think the primary driver for this loneliness epidemic is for your generation? I think it's a few things. I would say that obviously we're spending more time on screens, more time simulating, being in person together and replacing human interaction. But also there's the background to that. There's growing up in unstable families. There's just a sense as well, I think, that relationships can't last. I think for a lot of young women and young men, they haven't actually seen stable relationships. And so it's then magnified by growing up online where you see these really depressing takes on men and women. You see men and women more divided than ever. You might grow up watching online porn and your version of relationships is just so depressing. And I think we just have way fewer examples of a life than previous generations once did. Now, you've argued that, of course, there's the technology that came up with your generation and mine as well to some degree, but also that institutions weakened at the same time. Which institutions do you feel were the linchpins holding things together that have become weaker at this point? Yeah, I think there's a few. I think that older generations don't quite realize how little experience my generation has of community. So we don't know our neighbors. We haven't had that experience. All we really think about when we think about community is Instagram and Reddit and all of these online substitutes. And then you think of something like a religious community that a lot of older generations would have grown up in or around. And for my generation, we've never experienced anything like it. And sometimes I talk to conservatives and they have no idea that there's young people who have literally never stepped into a church or spoken to a Christian or had any experience of an in-person community where you meet up every week and you're expected to have obligations to one another. I think that we've had so few practice of socializing with people and having to turn up to something. Now, you've obviously written about all the things that have gone wrong. Is there anything that gives you hope for this next generation? Yeah, I think actually the response to the book has given me hope. I think that when I was growing up, I often just thought this is just me struggling with these things. I've been really reassuring to have young women say they've also felt so anxious and not quite had the language to describe why. And also having a response from young men. There's been a lot of young men who are worried about the girlfriends or their sisters or women in their lives and want to help. And I think if you scroll through Twitter, you wouldn't expect that. But I think it is happening. We are starting to care about each other. Freya, thank you so much for coming on and talking about this. Thank you so much. I really loved it. That was Freya India discussing her new book Girls Generation Z and the commodification of everything. And this has been a Weekend Edition of Oney Wire. Who helps America go farther? Fly higher. Dream even bigger. People do. Since 1879, our people have been more than a source of energy. They've been a source of progress. Today, that same progress is helping deliver record U.S. energy production. 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