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(applause)

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Thank you for being here,
I would like to congratulate you

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on this beautiful book!

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Thank you, I think
it's really important and significant

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really because, I think

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in general in society

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we tend to undervalue the voices
of teenage girls

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and I think you did a really good job
of illustrating a lot of strong

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and well informed and important
opinions from girls.

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And I think that's really really wonderful.

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That's really what I wanted to do 
with the book

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and the voices of girls
and call it "American Girls"

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because I think it's so important
that we talk about girls

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and not only talk ABOUT them
and maybe even change the WAY

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we talk about them, but 
listen to them

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and hear them when they talk.

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Yeah, I think it's really interesting
how much you just use

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the word "girl". 
like you really owned that in a way that

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sometimes people are a little hesitant to
because it can often feel demeaning

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I think.

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I mean, if anybody feels

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that the word "girl" is demeaning
we need to stop right there

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and unpack that because
what is demeaning about

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being a girl?

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A girl is a citizen of the United States
who is an important part

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and an often very vibrant 
-if you read the book-

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very vibrant, insightful part
of our national identity.

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So, I have no problem with the word: 
"girl".

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Good, good. I don't think we 
should either.

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So tell me about 
-for people who haven't read the book yet

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what you're doing in this story.

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The introduction did a pretty
good job of explaining:

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you talked to over 200 girls
from different states

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Tell us a little bit about
what you're working with.

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Well, I have written about
teenagers off and on

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for about twenty years, 
starting at New York Magazine

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in the 90s and then I came to 
Vanity Fair in 2000

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Off and on I'll do a story about
teens based on something

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that's happened in the news or 
some sort of new trend that we're seeing

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I've interviewed a lot of celebrities
who are also teenagers

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that sort of became my beat.

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I met Paris Hilton when 
she was a teenager

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I met Lindsay Lohan 
when she was a teenager

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"The Bling Ring" was about
a gang of teenage burglars.

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So I sort of became identified with
that beat.

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So around 2012/2013

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we started to see a lot of
stories in the news

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-which haven't stopped-
y'know, they continue to this day

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unfortunately, and since my
book has come out, we see them

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more and more.

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Stories that involved teenagers, 
particularly teenage girls

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and social media.

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And really serious kinds of 
abuses of social media.

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The footage of which would be posted
online with comments

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sometimes comments from
other teens

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but also from adults
that were really

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vilifying and slut-shaming.

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There was Steubenville:

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infamous case in Ohio with 
sexual assault and video online.

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There was Amanda Todd 
in Canada

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where this young girl was 
cyberbullied to death.

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Now there's a word for that:

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it's called "cyberbullicide"

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A man had taken a naked screenshot
of her and passed it around

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and she killed herself
famously or infamously

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posted a suicide online
flipping cards to tell you

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what she had gone through
and why she was about to do this.

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So these were just horrifying things
and they were just all of a sudden

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bubbling up.

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So my boss, Graden Carter, said to me:
"What is going on?"

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"What are we seeing here?"

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Let's find out. And so I went off
and did, first a story

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on this subject matter. 
and that became the basis for the book.

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Girls really brought me to it
because from the very first conversation

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that I had with girls in Los Angeles
about this

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I went out there, y'know, looking for
sources, looking for voices

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I typically don't go to 
an organization and say:

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"Give me some girls."

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I mean, there are a whole bunch of 
different ways to be a reporter

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there's all different ways 
to investigate something

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and I'm not saying one is better
or worse than the other.

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People put surveys online and
there's all different things to do.

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I'm very old school, I really
just kind of pound the pavement.

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I take a lot of trains and planes 
and automobiles

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and run around and try to find
girls where they are.

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So I went to - not to stereotype -
I went to a mall

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(laughter)

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in LA, called the Grove.

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If you know it it's an outdoor mall
I saw some teenage girls

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coming out of the Cheesecake Factory.

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They had just had a birthday party

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and they were carrying their leftovers
and they looked like girls who...

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kinda like how you would want 
girls to look in this day and age.

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Y'know you want them to look healthy
and happy,

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and it was a diverse group
and they went to a good school.

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Y'know, so what's going on in your
lives.

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Well, from that very first conversation
with no agenda from me

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they started telling me about 
social media

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and how it was really informing
their life.

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and this is three years ago.

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And they were talking about challenges 
to friendships

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and challenges to romantic 
relationships

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and judgments that were made

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and sexualization, which became
something that I heard

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more and more and more about

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from girls all over the country.

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Sexualization, if you're not aware of 
the term,

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sometimes hyper-sexualization

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which you know from reading the book
or maybe you're a sociologist

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or psychologist
and you're aware of it.

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You should be aware of it.

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Because it's a really important
thing to know about in our culture.

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What it is is the objectification of 
women and girls, treated as

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sexual objects.

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Sometimes with girls WAY 
before it's appropriate at all.

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It has sort of engulfed our
culture and it's in everything.

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It's in toys and media and music 
y'know, I talk about Dora the Explorer

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My daughter is 16, when she was little
Dora looked like a little girl

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She was this little square thing
with a bowl haircut.

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And now suddenly-have you seen Dora?

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Dora looks very different.
She's been sexualized.

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Why? Why? Why?

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And this is something that you talk about
how this has happened

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throughout human history, right?
Sexualization.

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But it's so much more efficient
because of the internet.

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It's happened before, but
if you think that you're seeing more

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sexualized images of women and girls now
than you did, like, say 15-20 years ago

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depending on how old you might be:

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it's true, you are.

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There are people, like sociologists,
who count this.

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There is more sexualization
of women and girls in the media

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Mass media and now on phones, 
on the social media

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Where girls and boys
are spending a whole lot of their time.

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In a very very short amount of time
their lives have changed

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and there's a new kind of childhood, 
a new kind of coming of age

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which simply didn't exist before
because the technology didn't exist.

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iPhones came out in 2007
Androids in 2008

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Widely adopted by 2009/2010
Social media goes online

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We're talking about something
that's less than ten years

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just this blip, this little nanosecond
in human evolution

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and yet boom. Such an unprecedented
influence on our behavior.

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On how we think and act
and interact.

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I think too it's interesting, 
early on in the book

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you talk about how 
over and over again

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you would talk to adults 
and parents and teachers

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and they would express their concerns,

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like, yeah! All these kids ever do
is spend time on their phone.

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And you have this line-something like:

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"When pressed, the adults also admitted
that they spent a lot of time

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on their phones as well."

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There's such a weird double standard
where we think we're okay

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on instagram and checking our facebook

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and whatever...maybe just because
we didn't grow up with the internet

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so it's different for some reason?
What do you think about that?

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Very early in the book, actually, 
so I think it's important to note

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right away, I talk about 
the role modeling that's going on

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with parents and with adults.

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It is true statistically that kids, 
girls in particular

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spend more time on phones than
anybody else

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and this is across socioeconomic lines
and across demographics.

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There are girls in my book
from all different kinds of places

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and all different kinds of families.

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And everybody has a phone.
But that's just because, like,

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they don't have jobs, and they're
not raising kids and stuff.

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I'm sure that every adult in this room 
would be on their phones just as much

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if they didn't have stuff to do.
(laughter)

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Y'know? Because it's very addictive.
And it's designed to be addictive

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I was hesitant to really say that
when the book came out because

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Like, the research wasn't quite there yet
and I'm like...well the jury's still

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kind of out on whether this is addictive.

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I feel validated even since my book 
came out

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there's been a lot of deep research 
on this

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and now you can pretty much openly say
that this is an addictive medium,

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that it's, again, DESIGNED to be
addictive

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particularly dating apps are
designed to be addictive.

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And it plugs into your brain the same
way that, in particular, gambling does.

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You're sort of...this sort of
game theory of

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putting out something and 
trying to get a response

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It's sort of like betting, y'know?

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So, it doesn't seem to follow addiction
in terms of drugs so much as gambling

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although I think there's probably some 
crossover there.

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But the hand-eye coordination thing
is like a slot machine or something

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If you think about something like tinder,

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for example, where it's just totally
following the game theory

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of gambling.

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Y'know, Swipe swipe swipe 
swipe swipe. I'll swipe swipe swipe

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Do you know what Tinder is, everybody?

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Yeah, how many people here are familiar
like have used the interface, I wonder.

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I guess it's kinda hard to see.
Can you guys raise your hand

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Can you clap?
(people clap)

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Anyways Tinder is a dating app.

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Clap for Tinder, yeah!

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If you're an old person like myself
and you haven't used Tinder

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Then - I mean, I've been on it
for research - ONLY

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(laughter)

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Air quotes "For research"

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But anyways, you look at someone's face,
you swipe on it

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"Yes, I wanna 'date' you"

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which really means have sex with you

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or "No, I don't want to."

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For a lot of men, and this is based on
research that I also did

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reporting that I did.

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
for the book and also for 
another story about dating apps

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For a lot of men it's like you 
cover your averages

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The more you swipe the more 
chance you have of having sex

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and so it's like betting.

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And then when you match with someone

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it goes "BRIIING". Your face and 
their face go "BRIIING" and they

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actually bump together and 
there's this sound like "WOOOHOO"

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So it's like a slot machine.

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Right, it's really like a slot machine.

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So I started to wonder-what is that doing?

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I mean it's objectification of
men and women, women in particular

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
seem to be more objectified, more
sexualized on these platforms.

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Absolutely, we definitely want to talk 
about the dating apps more

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But I'm a little curious about the 
creation story of this book.

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You say you went to LA, you did
the first interview

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And that was for a magazine story, right?
Or was that for the book at this point?

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No, I had a Vanity Fair story 
that sort of became the basis for the book

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The story was called-Oh, I don't write
the headlines

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It was called "Friends Without Benefits"


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"I don't write the headlines" That's fair

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It was called "Friends Without Benefits" 
and when Vanity Fair put it online

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it went viral. 
And I never had that happen to me

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before because I usually go in the print
and I'm not really so much online

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and so now we have more of a presence
as a website

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It went online and having a viral story
is a really strange experience

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I've had a few now, since then
I've been lucky in that way.

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Well, the subject matter is just epidemic
and it's just everywhere and

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It seems to be something that everyone's

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thinking about. You start to get emailed
on the website

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if you ever want to talk to me about
anything: nancyjosephhales.com

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I have an email function there. 
I started to get emails, like scores

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and then hundreds a day.

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From parents, mostly, grandparents
but also kids

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And not just in the United States
all over

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People writing in Australia and saying
it's just like that here

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We're going through the same stuff here.

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And actually, since the book's come out
Y'know, I'm not saying this

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to promote the book-I'm saying this to
underscore the fact that this is a global

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phenomenon even though the book's called
"American Girls"

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I've been on the radio in Ireland
and all of these different places

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Because I think the reason is, again, 
the platforms are the same

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They are the same. Snapchat is snapchat
In Dublin and in New York City and in

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New Orleans and in India
where I just read in the Hindu-Stan Times

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They have, in India now, a terrible problem
with girls and cyberstalking

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What you hear a lot from 
social media companies

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their public relations thing that they say
is that this technology is wonderful

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and it's causing all of these wonderful
connections and it's bringing us all

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closer together and y'know
it's just this magic box that's making

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our lives great, y'know.

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There's some good stuff about social media
Don't get me wrong

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I recognize what it is-and girls talk 
in my book about some of the

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really great things about social media
as well

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But before very recently, nobody was
talking about the challenges

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and the things that are really, I think
very disruptive to a healthy childhood

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and a healthy high school experience.

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So that's...did that answer your question?

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Well, what I was wondering was
at what point did you know it was

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a book? Was it when you were
sitting in the mall with your Cheesecake

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Factory bags like "Oh my God, this is
huge"

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I think when the story went viral.

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That's when it was-

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It was just like: "Woah!"
And there was some resistance too!

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It's weird to me because I've had this 
experience with a lot of stories

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that I've done where people in the media
-I can think of some names, that I

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won't say right now-
They'll say "Oh, that's not true,

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She's just making it up, 
It's all exaggerated, Nuh uh, not true."

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Because oftentimes these are people who
somebody from social media

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has called them up.

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They have their own sources, they write
about Tech

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And somebody has called them up 
and said: "Did you see this story

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that this woman wrote? That's not true!
We're not doing that."

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I don't know. Whatever. Sometimes
There's resistance and I think there's

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a kind of a frog in the pot situation
where people don't really understand

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that the water's heating up because

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they're in it.

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So that'll be happening-at the same time
I'm getting an email from a woman in Iran

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who says to me: "My daughter"
-well, they're in New York City, but

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they're Iranian.

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She said: "My daughter met a boy 
on facebook. She broke up with him

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and he went on this whole revenge
porn thing. Tried to ruin her life.

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These stories are all too common.

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What's it like getting emails like that?

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I try to get them to-it's great, in a way
because I learn more

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and also, if they have some kind of 
school that they're connected to or

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organization that I can help with or
be a part of, I try to connect people

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when I can. I recently got an email-

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It takes you in places you never thought
you would go.

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Right, yeah.
Two days ago I was in Grand Rapids, Michigan

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A place I never thought I would go.

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(laughter)

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I'm sort of a New Yorker

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I was talking to the best people
these were all people who work in the

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Juvenile Justice Area.

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These are professionals who are 
probation officers, people who work in

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the court system and foster care.
And they're seeing all this stuff

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with social media and teenagers,
particularly girls coming into the system.

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They don't understand what's going on
and they need to tell them

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I learned so much from them
just talking to them

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So I like it, I like to take this whole
thing in places I never thought it would go

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and there's been a lot of that
in the last few months.

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I think really what's so remarkable
about this book is that you do

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such a great job of painting a picture
of what it's like to be a teenage girl

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at Dunkin Donuts at the end of school
on a Friday afternoon.

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The Dunkin Donuts scene I thought of
recently with all of this stuff

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that's come out with Donald Trump

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because here was Donald Trump
-and y'know I'm not trying to say you

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should vote for one person or the 
other person.

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But I'm just saying, it's been pretty 
striking the kind of

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well-they're calling it "locker room talk"
that's coming out of the mouth

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of a Presidential candidate.

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I thought of that when I heard the 
Access Hollywood bus tape

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-the infamous bus tape-

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I thought of that scene in the 
Mont-Claire, New Jersey Dunkin Donuts

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I thought of those 13-14 year old boys
that I listened to standing around

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in the Dunkin Donuts just casually buying 
donuts saying that very same

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kind of stuff. 
One of the things that I'm trying to talk

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about in the book is the way in which
this sort of normalization

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of misogyny-I don't even think I use

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the word "misogyny" in the book
because even 6-8 months ago

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when it came out, when I wrote it
I thought: "People don't like that word.

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I want people to hear my message. 
I don't want them to get tripped up on

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
a word like misogyny or rape culture."

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Thank you Michelle Obama! 
Now we can say these words.

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
This sort of casual misogyny that was 
being uttered by these boys in this

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Dunkin Donuts. Believe me, I don't blame
these boys, I blame this culture

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It's bad for them too. It's not like
they're "bad boys"

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They're growing up in this culture
where people like Donald Trump,

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Who is running for President, 
say these things and

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a whole lot of people say: "Oh, that's
okay, that's just locker room talk

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It doesn't matter."
I mean, yeah it does, it does matter.

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It affects girls...
(applause)

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Right? So here I am in the Dunkin Donuts
Nobody's parents are there

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It's where they go in this particular town
after school and hang out and

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have donuts.

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska
it was a grocery store, so I can relate

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So they're all pretty little 13 year olds
can look 13 or they can look 11

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they're pretty little and they all have
powdered sugar on their face

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and they're eating donuts and
bouncing on the couches and stuff

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
no parents around.
and they're talking like Donald Trump

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
That was before Donald Trump, so what 
ran through my mind was like...

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Where is this coming from?

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The idea that they can't have 
made it up. They must've heard it

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
somewhere to be reiterating it.

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Of course, and I really don't think 
it was necessarily from even their fathers

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That's the thing
You can have a household where

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people are pretty careful about how 
they treat women and are respectful

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and how they talk and stuff but then
kids go out into the world,

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young boys and men go out into the world
and they see all kinds of support

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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
for the idea that this is the way you
be a man in this culture.

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The guy on Entourage and the guy
on the Wolf of Wall Street