Two Percent with Michael Easter: Is Social Media Addiction Real?
TechStuff
iHeartPodcasts
4.3 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
TechStuff presents Two Percent with Michael Easter, a twice-weekly deep dive into the science of living better by doing things the hard way.
In this episode of the podcast, Taylor Lorenz of the Substack User Mag and host of podcast Power User joins Michael to discuss whether social media should be considered addictive. Together, they look at the real science on dopamine, the recent Meta verdict from Los Angeles, Section 230, KOSA, looksmaxxing, and what's actually driving the teen mental health conversation.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:15.8 | Hi all. Osvaloshan here. |
| 0:17.7 | I'm excited to share a clip from another podcast on the kaleidoscope network. |
| 0:21.7 | It's called 2% with Michael Easter. Michael Easter is the New York Times bestselling author and |
| 0:26.4 | journalist whose mission is to push people beyond the 98% of life lived in routine and into |
| 0:32.9 | the 2% of effort that rewires our limits. The podcast blends science, storytelling and practical |
| 0:38.6 | advice to help you live a bolder, better and more meaningful life, one uncomfortable idea at a time. |
| 0:45.3 | Unlike many wellness podcasts that cater to Taipei perfectionists, 2% with Michael Easter |
| 0:50.9 | is built for real life. And the episode we're dropping today features Taylor |
| 0:55.0 | Lorenz, one of techstaff's regular roundtable guests, talking about her favorite topic, social media, |
| 1:02.0 | and whether or not as addictive. Hope you enjoy. |
| 1:05.0 | All right, so maybe you don't smoke, you don't drink, you don't gamble, but you may have a certain |
| 1:12.8 | vice, as I do. And that is social media. The average person today spends more than four hours |
| 1:20.6 | on average on their phone. Probably a lot of that is going to social media. So you are seeing a lot |
| 1:25.5 | of attention being put on this idea that we are on social |
| 1:29.9 | media way too much. And it is causing us harm, probably hearing about kids who are getting |
| 1:35.5 | depressed from using social media too much, probably even adults as well. And in order to unpack |
| 1:41.3 | this issue of whether social media is addictive or not, and whether it hurts mental health, we have a really great guest. |
| 1:48.9 | Her name is Taylor Lorenz. |
| 1:50.2 | She's been reporting on this topic for a very long time. |
| 1:53.4 | She is the author of a book called Extremely Online, The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet. |
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