Listening to Scott Galloway on The Rubin Report should be a wake-up call for every parent, teacher, and patriot who cares about the future of our boys and young men. Galloway lays out, plainly and uncomfortably, how smartphones, AI-driven substitutes, and algorithmic dopamine loops are rewiring a generation away from grit, rejection, and real-life courtship—the very skills that make men productive providers and protective fathers. His warning that a frictionless digital life erodes resilience is not moralizing; it’s a clinical diagnosis of cultural rot that demands a remedy.
You don’t have to take a pundit’s word for it — the data is striking: Gallup finds younger American men report loneliness at far higher rates than their peers at home and abroad, with roughly one in four under 35 saying they felt lonely the prior day. That’s not mere sulking; chronic social isolation has real health consequences and corrodes the civic virtues that bind communities and families. If America wants strong neighborhoods, we cannot tolerate an entire cohort retreating behind screens and controllers.
Big Tech is not neutral in this collapse; it profits from engineered isolation. Endless scrolling, porn feeds tailored by algorithms, and gaming economies are designed to capture attention and stretch dopamine rewards into an all-day substitute for effort, rejection, and human connection. The result is predictable: men who never practice handling failure, who never risk rejection, and who never build the muscle of earning respect in the real world are increasingly ill-equipped to take on the responsibilities of adulthood.
Medical research is already linking this new digital diet to physical and relational harms. Large, peer-reviewed studies have found troubling associations between problematic pornography consumption and higher rates of erectile dysfunction and other sexual dysfunctions among young men, a phenomenon clinicians are now discussing as pornography-induced sexual problems. This isn’t prudishness; it’s a public-health alarm bell showing that virtual substitutes displace real intimacy and self-mastery.
More sober research treating pornography-watching disorder like a behavioral condition finds measurable prevalence and clear risk factors tied to early exposure and daily consumption, underscoring that what was once hidden is now a measurable social pathology. When a segment of young men’s intimate lives is mediated by pixels and algorithms, we should expect declines in relationship skills, confidence, and even fertility choices. The corporations that scale these behaviors profit handsomely while teenagers and twenty-somethings pay the price.
These cultural trends intersect with economic realities: men are enrolling in college at lower rates, exiting the workforce or participating less, and spending more hours alone — patterns detailed in analyses of recent labor and education data. The erosion of routine, work, and mentorship that once anchored young men has left a vacuum filled by digital vices rather than veteran neighbors, coaches, or faith leaders. This is not solely an economic problem; it is a character problem that policy and culture must address in tandem.
So what do we do? Conservatives should stop ceding the field to tech apologists and campus victimologists and start offering a robust, optimistic roadmap back to manhood: jobs that teach responsibility, community institutions that teach courage, and a cultural pride in sacrifice, service, and family. Push for accountability from monopolistic platforms, demand parental controls and education, and most importantly, teach boys to take risks, to handle rejection, and to build honor through work — because freedom depends on people who can stand up, not hide behind a screen.
