The Ezra Klein Show

Our Times Opinion colleagues recently launched a new podcast called “The Opinions [https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-opinions].” It’s basically the Opinion page in audio form, so you can hear your favorite Times Opinion columnists and contributing writers in one place, in their own voices. It’s an eclectic and surprising mix of perspectives, as you’ll see with these two segments we’ve selected for you to enjoy. The first is with the Times Opinion columnist (and friend of the pod) David French, a lifelong conservative who’s staunchly pro-life, on why he’s voting for Kamala Harris this November, and the second is with the novelist Curtis Sittenfeld, who enters into a writing competition of sorts against a new writer on the block — ChatGPT. Mentioned: “David French on the Pro-Life Case for Kamala Harris [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/19/opinion/harris-trump-conservatives.html]” “Can You Tell Which Short Story ChatGPT Wrote? [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/opinion/curtis-sittenfeld-chatgpt-summer-beach-story.html]” You can subscribe to “The Opinions” on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-opinions/id1762898126], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/581OhiIm69lqSyNRbBkXnf], Amazon Music [https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/4b68fc73-2a9c-49b2-a18f-c95461b617ad/the-opinions], YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdMrbgYfVl-tMEnS1IoUtgT3GyTq75-jp], iHeartRadio [https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-opinions-205695035/] — or wherever you listen to podcasts.

I feel that there’s something important missing in our debate over screen time and kids — and even screen time and adults. In the realm of kids and teenagers, there’s so much focus on what studies show or don’t show: How does screen time affect school grades and behavior? Does it carry an increased risk of anxiety or depression? And while the debate over those questions rages on, a feeling has kept nagging me. What if the problem with screen time isn’t something we can measure? In June, Jia Tolentino published a great piece in The New Yorker [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/06/17/cocomelon-children-television-youtube-netflix] about the blockbuster children’s YouTube channel CoComelon, which seemed as if it was wrestling with the same question. So I invited her on the show, and our conversation ended up going places I never expected. Among other things, we talk about how the decision to have kids relates to doing psychedelics, what kinds of pleasure to seek if you want a good life and how much the debate over screen time and kids might just be adults projecting our own discomfort with our own screen time. We recorded this episode a few days before the Trump-Biden debate — and before Donald Trump chose JD Vance as his running mate. We then got so swept up in politics coverage we never got a chance to air it. But I am so excited to finally get this one out into the world. This episode contains strong language. Mentioned: “How CoComelon Captures Our Children’s Attention [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/06/17/cocomelon-children-television-youtube-netflix]” by Jia Tolentino “Can Motherhood Be a Mode of Rebellion? [https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/can-motherhood-be-a-mode-of-rebellion]” by Jia Tolentino How to Do Nothing [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/600671/how-to-do-nothing-by-jenny-odell/] by Jenny Odell Book Recommendations: Lonesome Dove [https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/larry-mcmurtry/lonesome-dove/9781447203056] by Larry McMurtry In Ascension [https://groveatlantic.com/book/in-ascension/] by Martin MacInnes When We Cease to Understand the World [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/676260/when-we-cease-to-understand-the-world-by-benjamin-labatut-translated-from-the-spanish-by-adrian-nathan-west/] by Benjamin Labatut Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast [https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast]. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs [https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html]. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Mixing by Isaac Jones, with Efim Shapiro and Aman Sahota. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Jeff Geld, Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

I’m convinced that attention is the most important human faculty. Your life, after all, is just the sum total of the things you’ve paid attention to. We lament our attention issues all the time — how distracted we are, how drained we feel, how hard it is to stay focused or present. And yet, while there’s no shortage of advice on how to improve our sleep hygiene or spending habits or physical fitness, there’s hardly any good information about how to build and replenish our capacity for paying attention. Gloria Mark is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of the book “Attention Span [https://gloriamark.com/attention-span/].” And she’s one of the few people who have deeply studied the way our attention works, how that’s been changing and what we can do to stop frittering away our attention budgets.  This was our first release of 2024, a kind of New Year’s resolutions episode. And since it can sometimes help to be reminded of the intentions with which you began your year — especially in the midst of a high-intensity election season — we thought we’d share it again.  Book recommendations: “The Challenger Launch Decision [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo22781921.html]” by Diane Vaughan “The Undoing Project [https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Undoing-Project/]” by Michael Lewis “The God Equation [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/555753/the-god-equation-by-michio-kaku/]” by Michio Kaku Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Claire Gordon. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

We recently did an episode on the strange new gender politics that have emerged in the 2024 election. But we only briefly touched on the social and economic changes that underlie this new politics — the very real ways boys and men have been falling behind. In March 2023, though, we dedicated a whole episode to that subject. Our guest was Richard Reeves, the author of the 2022 book “Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It [https://www.brookings.edu/books/of-boys-and-men/],” who recently founded the American Institute for Boys and Men [https://aibm.org/why-we-exist/] to develop solutions for the gender gap he describes in his research. He argues that you can’t understand inequality in America today without understanding the specific challenges facing men and boys. And I would add that there’s no way to fully understand the politics of this election without understanding that, either. So we’re rerunning this episode, because Reeves’s insights on this feel more relevant than ever. We discuss how the current education system places boys at a disadvantage, why boys raised in poverty are less likely than girls to escape it, why so many young men look to figures like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate for inspiration, what a better social script for masculinity might look like and more. Mentioned: "Gender Achievement Gaps in U.S. School Districts [https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1234682.pdf]" by Sean F. Reardon, Erin M. Fahle, Demetra Kalogrides, Anne Podolsky and Rosalia C. Zarate "Redshirt the Boys [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/boys-delayed-entry-school-start-redshirting/671238/]" by Richard Reeves Book recommendations: "The Tenuous Attachments of Working-Class Men [https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.33.2.211]" by Kathryn Edin, Timothy Nelson, Andrew Cherlin and Robert Francis Career and Family [https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691201788/career-and-family] by Claudia Goldin The Life of Dad [https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/The-Life-of-Dad/Anna-Machin/9781471161407] by Anna Machin Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast [https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast], and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs [https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html]. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Rogé Karma and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Sonia Herrero. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Carol Sabouraud and Kristina Samulewski.

On Thursday night, Kamala Harris reintroduced herself to America. And by the standards of Democratic convention speeches, this one was pretty unusual. In this conversation I’m joined by my editor, Aaron Retica, to discuss what Harris’s speech reveals about the candidate, the campaign she’s going to run and how she believes she can win in November. Mentioned: The Truths We Hold [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/591562/the-truths-we-hold-by-kamala-harris/] by Kamala Harris Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast [https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast]. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs [https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html]. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Claire Gordon. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Jack McCordick. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.