Chatbots, MDMA, and Finding Love in the Digital Era

Offline with Jon Favreau

Crooked Media

News, Society & Culture

4.7 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2026

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sonja Lyubomirsky, happiness researcher and author of How to Feel Loved, joins Offline to explain the secret to living a contented life—and why the internet makes it so damn hard. If everyone we love and seek to impress is reachable at all times…why are Americans getting less happy, year after year? Sonja and Jon chat about how social media curation may be seeping offline, the ways our digital lives have affected our ability to form strong relationships, and whether AI could actually help bring under-socialized, under-romanced teens out of their shells.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Dan Pfeiffer. For years, I've heard from candidates, activists, and political staffers who
0:04.3	turned to Podsafe America for political strategy and messaging advice because they don't have
0:08.4	access to a political consultant or a pollster. That's flattering to hear, but it's a huge problem.
0:13.9	If we're going to defeat MAGA and protect democracy, we need everyone to have access to the
0:17.4	best information and advice possible. That's why I recently launched MessageBox Pro, a subscription consulting product for people
0:24.1	working at every level of politics.
0:26.2	Subscribers get weekly strategy memos, data-driven messaging insights, and polling analysis.
0:30.8	Plus, you get access to an incredible community of smart, committed political pros.
0:35.6	Whether you're running for office, staffing and politician,
0:37.9	organizing your community, or working in communications at any level,
0:41.5	MessageBox Pro is built for you. So learn more or sign up. Go to messageboxpro.com.
0:49.2	A chatbot is going to be the best listener you've ever had in your life, right?
0:52.1	Because I'll remember everything you ever said and what you're exactly how you said it.
0:56.2	All right. So you can't compete with that, right? You can't compete with listening to learn or curiosity, right? They'll ask you lots of questions in a way and they'll keep asking in a way that a human will get tired, right? our brain is sort of co-opted and we think, yeah, when that AI companion is sharing about their experience, we think that's real.
1:13.7	The one part that is, right? Our brain is sort of co-opted and we think, yeah, when that AI companion is sharing about their experience,
1:12.4	that we think that's real. The one part that I find it hard to imagine is that open heart, right,
1:18.4	that the AI actually really loves me and wants me to be happy.
1:33.0	I'm John Favreau, and you just heard from today's guest, Sonia Lubermerski, author of How to Feel Loved.
1:40.6	Sonia is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and one of the nation's foremost researchers on the science of happiness.
1:46.2	Happiness is, of course, one of those elusive endeavors in which every self-help guru claims to hold the key. We've heard their recommendations. Spend more time with your loved
1:51.2	ones, exercise more, get outside, put down the phone. But not many people have compiled the
1:56.0	research Sonia has on what truly makes us happy. To some extent, her findings are simple.
	...

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