The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Masculinity Debate: Are Dating Apps Creating A Generation Of Incels?! Lonely Men Are More Dangerous Than Ever!
Mon, 31 Mar 2025
Are we raising a lost generation of men? Is society failing young boys? In this emergency discussion, Steven sits down with expert guests to explore the recently published ‘Lost Boys Report’. The Diary Of A CEO’s masculinity discussion is joined by Scott Galloway and Logan Ury. Scott Galloway is a member of the advisory council for the American Institute for Boys and Men and Professor of Marketing at the New York Stern School of Business. Logan Ury is a behavioural scientist turned dating coach and Director of Relationship Science at Hinge. In this discussion, Scott, Logan, and Steven discuss topics such as, how toxic masculinity has a grip on young men, whether dating apps are creating a generation of incels, the rising levels of violence among adolescent men, and why young boys are giving up on love and work. 00:00 Intro 02:13 The Lost Boys Report 03:46 Who Is Logan and What Does She Do? 05:07 Who Is Scott 06:12 How Did This Happen? 10:38 Fatherless Homes 14:40 Are Boys Mentally Weaker? 16:51 Is the Education System the Problem? 22:49 Where Are Male Role Models? 30:08 What the Stats Say About Dating 34:42 Dating Standards 44:23 Do Women Really Want Emotionally Attuned Men? 46:16 If They're Okay, Always Go on a Second Date 48:06 Men's Groups: Should We Have Them and What Are the Benefits? 54:57 Ads 55:50 Steve's Supportive Group of Friends 1:02:42 The Dangers of Porn for Young Boys 1:08:01 How Scott Helps Men With Porn Addiction 1:13:12 Men Approaching Women in a Post-MeToo Era 1:15:27 Teens Don’t Know How to Ask Girls Out in Person 1:25:22 Do Successful Women Struggle to Find a Partner? 1:28:11 Ads 1:29:14 The Rise of Feminism 1:30:54 Money Equals Identity for Men 1:36:09 Does Money Give Self-Worth to Women? 1:38:42 The Human Dating Boot Camp 1:47:33 How Is the Left Going to Get Men Back? 1:52:16 Advice for Parents of Young Boys 1:55:12 What Scott and Steve Had to Unlearn About Being a Man 2:10:02 Closing Message for the Lost Boys You can learn more about the March 2025 CSJ Report, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/2kI16MnW6Rb Follow Scott: Instagram - https://g2ul0.app.link/iY8VsRwW6Rb Twitter - https://g2ul0.app.link/mtdT5dzW6Rb Website - https://g2ul0.app.link/V8ukmVDW6Rb Follow Logan: Instagram - https://g2ul0.app.link/z6h5BeGW6Rb Twitter - https://g2ul0.app.link/jzjDZkIW6Rb Website - https://g2ul0.app.link/5SIP1FOW6Rb You can purchase Scott’s book, ‘The Algebra of Happiness: The Pursuit of Success, Love and What It All Means’, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/gNRRlBCU6Rb You can purchase Logan’s book, ‘How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love’, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/4aQGk5EU6Rb Research document: https://stevenbartlett.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/DOAC-Lost-Boys-Independent-Research-and-Further-Reading.pdf Watch the episodes on Youtube - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACEpisodes My new book! 'The 33 Laws Of Business & Life' is out now - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACBook Get your hands on the Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards here: https://bit.ly/conversationcards-mp Sign up to receive email updates about Diary Of A CEO here: https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt Ready to think like a CEO? Gain access to the 100 CEOs newsletter here: https://bit.ly/100-ceos-newsletter Follow me: https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Shopify - https://shopify.com/bartlett Perfect Ted - https://www.perfectted.com with code DIARY40 for 40% off Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What does 'The Lost Boys Report' reveal about young men today?
This is a critical conversation around truly the future of humanity.
But we don't like to talk about this.
This report is absolutely shocking. This is a crisis and young men are struggling. So I sat down with two leading voices on societal issues to discuss the rise of millions of lonely, addicted men. And the most important question is, how do we fix this? So let's start with this graph. It shows that young women are now out earning young men.
It is true. We have given women so many tools to achieve, but now boys are being left behind.
and that the number of males aged 16 to 24 who are not in educational employment has increased by a staggering 40%.
And the data I've seen is that when the woman in the relationship starts making more money, they become twice as likely to get divorced.
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Chapter 2: Are fatherless homes contributing to the crisis among young men?
Because traditionally women seek partners who have more economic or social status than they do. And emotional intelligence is the new currency in dating. But these guys were raised not to be emotionally intelligent, but to be a provider.
that a lack of male involvement in kids' lives is a big factor leading to this. And once they lose a male role model, they become much more likely to engage in criminal activity.
And so we are just creating a lot of these angry young single men who are saying, well, this is rigged against me.
We actually have asked some of our audience to write in, and this guy, Jeffrey, wrote in and said, my entire life, I have never felt like I was good enough, like I could never earn my place in society.
It's devastating. But something that's controversial I've gotten pushback on. I think the secret weapon for men that they don't leverage is to... I want to hear a woman's perspective on it.
Honestly, what I would do is... I find it incredibly fascinating that when we look at the back end of Spotify and Apple and our audio channels, the majority of people that watch this podcast haven't yet hit the follow button or the subscribe button, wherever you're listening to this. I would like to make a deal with you.
If you could do me a huge favor and hit that subscribe button, I will work tirelessly from now until forever to make the show better and better and better and better. I can't tell you how much it helps when you hit that subscribe button. The show gets bigger, which means we can expand the production, bring in all the guests you want to see and continue to do in this thing we love.
If you could do me that small favor and hit the follow button, wherever you're listening to this, that would mean the world to me. That is the only favor I will ever ask you. Thank you so much for your time. In March 2025, the Centre of Social Justice released this report, which has sent a couple of shockwaves across the UK, especially across the media.
And just to give you a little bit of a sort of preface and some context on what this report says, at the start of the report, Andy Cook, who's the CEO of the report, says, we listen to those working on the front line, the teachers, the youth workers, the charities, and the parents who day in, day out, see the struggles of young people. And in recent years, they've been telling us the same thing.
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Chapter 3: Is the education system failing boys?
The numbers don't lie. Something has shifted and we cannot ignore it any longer. It's not just about Andrew Tate or online influences. These are symptoms, not the cause. The deeper truth is that too many boys are growing up without the guidance, discipline and purpose they need to survive.
And there's some frankly horrific graphs, which actually sent the CEO of my company, a lady called Georgie, um, into quite an emotional state. She texted me and told me she was crying looking at some of these graphs, which we'll talk about today. But this is a subject that I know both of you know very, very well. So I'm keen to get into exactly why this is happening and what we can do about it.
But to preface this discussion, to understand where you both come from and the perspective you have, Logan, who are you?
Yeah.
And what do you do?
I'm a behavioral scientist turned dating coach. So that means that I take all the lessons from the field of behavioral science, how we make decisions, and then I apply them to the field of relationship science, which is how love works. And so I'm really passionate about this topic because for a long time, I've found that wherever I go, people say... oh, I know all these great single women.
Do you know any great single guys? And I just thought, oh, okay, maybe that's always been happening. But when I actually dug into the data, I saw that we are truly in a dating crisis right now. And there is a huge mating gap between the type of men that women are looking for and the type of men that are available.
This is a critical conversation around truly the future of humanity because marriage rates are down. That means birth rates are down. And so this conversation is extremely important.
And what sort of reference points do you draw upon? Because you've got some sort of unique access to data, right?
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Chapter 4: How are dating apps affecting men's mental health and relationships?
I'm keen to understand from your perspectives what you think, like, the first domino that falls in a young man's life or a young boy's life that causes the outcomes we're talking about today. Like, where is the first place to start?
So the research I've looked at, and Richard Reeves from the American Institute of Boys in Medicine did research here, the point of failure, if you reverse-engineered issues to, is when a boy loses a male role model. And that is, in the U.S., we have the second most single-family parent homes behind Sweden.
And what's interesting is that in single-parent homes, girls actually have similar outcomes, similar rates of high school attendance, income, rates of self-harm. Boys, once they lose a male role model, become much more likely to be incarcerated, engage in criminal activity, harm themselves. It ends up that while being physically stronger, boys are emotionally and mentally much weaker.
So the loss of a male role model is, I would argue, kind of the first point of failure that predicts that a kid, a boy is going to struggle. And that has impacts on family court, economic policy, and just general zeitgeist in our society where Men need to step up. If we want better men, we need to be better men. We need to step into that void.
Another one that Richard Reeves talks about is that there's not enough men in the education system. So I believe when Tim Waltz was a teacher, one out of three teachers in his school was a man. But now it's like 24%. And so where do kids spend most of their time? In school. And who's teaching them? Mostly not men.
And you think, well, women can be fantastic teachers, and it's true. But after-school programs, not as many coaches that typically are male, not as much compensation, so they don't get rewarded for being coaches. And if you just think about it logically, who does a teacher champion? A teacher champions someone that reminds them of themselves when they were a kid. And also just look at the…
There's incredible bias, I would argue, against males in school. A boy is twice as likely to be suspended on a behavior-adjusted basis. Twice as likely to be suspended for the exact same infraction is a girl. Five times as likely if it's a black boy. And once you're suspended twice, it probably means you're not going to college. In addition, look at the behaviors we promote in school. Sit still.
Be a pleaser. Be organized. Raise your hand. You basically just described a girl. And also, quite frankly, a lot of the jobs that require tertiary education attainment, there's more women now in law school and medical school. And quite frankly, good for them. They're just better at that. They're better students. They deserve to make more money. They deserve it. But the reality is...
It has huge ramifications when we no longer have wood, auto, or metal shop. They've gone away. So those used to be a pass to do some middle-class jobs. They've been replaced by computer science. So what are the pass for the two-thirds of males that aren't going to end up with a traditional liberal arts college degree?
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Chapter 5: What role does online content play in shaping young men's behaviors?
Gender pay gap graph.
Right.
And it shows that young women are now out earning young men. That's not what I heard in terms of like if I log on to social media we've been trying to fight the gender pay gap but to see that young men are now falling behind both in education both in unemployment young men face higher unemployment nearly twice the rate of women looking at the early developmental stats this graph was horrifying.
I like actually couldn't believe that was true that young young boys are struggling so much in education but then to see also that it's reflected in
So that graph shows that boys age 16 to 24 are making 10% less in full-time employment than women. And so it is true that we're seeing a reverse income graph. But what we do need to talk about is even when women make more in their 20s, that changes around age 30. And they have kids. When they have kids, right? It's like this meteorite hits and there's this huge burden placed on women.
And I think that's a big part of the conversation that we'll talk about when we talk about dating is women still feel like they have to have, you know, do all the household chores and raise the kids, but suddenly they have to earn a full-time income too. And so, so many of the gender roles are changing. And so, yes, that graph is true.
We have seen since 2020 that there's a shift, but I don't want to just say, oh, women are making more in perpetuity because as soon as there's kids involved, they pay the price.
You said that women feel the need to then also earn a career and all those things. Where did that come from?
Well, there's this idea of hypergamy. So traditionally, women seek partners who have more economic or social status than they do. And for most of human history, this worked because men had the resources. And so there was sort of this arrangement where women could often marry someone who is more educated or earned more. But over the last 50 years, that's really changed.
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Chapter 6: Can men's groups provide a solution to modern masculinity issues?
No, no, no. I think your answer.
Family orange. I feel so shamed.
No, no, no. I think your answer is wonderful. And I actually, in general, find that outerwear answers are very strong because it means that you feel warm around them. It's you at your best. This is your favorite.
I just feel fucking fabulous. I don't know if I feel warm.
That's all that matters. Your answer was great. The answers that worry me are something like a wool sweater that feels good, but then it's itchy, so I take it off. The ratty shirt that I wear to the gym. These are real answers I've gotten. Point is, for years I've been asking people this question.
Well, now I want to ask people the question of, if you were a piece of clothing in your closet, what would you be? And I feel like we spend so much time saying, I'm looking for this in a partner. This is the checklist. Well, look in the mirror. Do you have those traits? And so for somebody who says, I'm a ratty,
sweatshirt and it's not the thing that I would choose to wear, well, then work on yourself. And so I feel like there's a lot of feelings of I'm going to relation shop. I'm going to look for a partner the way I look for Bluetooth headphones. Well, a lot of that is about breaking people down into these parts.
And I feel like we should spend less time thinking about the checklist for a partner and more time thinking about who am I and am I somebody who would be chosen.
We've talked a lot about how young men are struggling. Which demographic of women do you find struggle the most as it relates to mating and dating?
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Chapter 7: How is pornography impacting young men's social skills?
Those are the people that whisper to me in the streets about these conversations. It's the 40 to 55-year-old mother who has a son, who doesn't feel like she can speak up, but says to me privately that she's worried about her kids. And actually, we had some mothers write in, all of which wanted to stay anonymous. saying this exact same thing. They've got an 18-year-old son. They're super concerned.
They've got a 16-year-old son. The son looks lost. As the stats show from the report, they're not leaving home in the same way that women, their daughters leave home, but they don't know what to do about it. So for those parents that are listening now, we can't change society. What would you recommend a parent of a young boy does?
First thing is forgive yourself. There's this natural... part of a separation where and I think this is true of girls but especially boys where to make the separation easier we don't get along with our parents in our senior year in high school and That doesn't mean your son doesn't love you. That doesn't mean your son's not going to figure it out. But to forgive yourself.
But going back to more actionable things, try and get men involved in his life. And then, you know, dumb stuff like my mom made sure I was in Boy Scouts. My mom, when I got cut from the high school basketball and football team, she enrolled me in city leagues so I could continue to play sports. But it was mostly she wasn't sure that I had men in my life.
And I think that was really, really important for me. But, you know, I would just say that I feel like I need to coach men more. What I say to boys, one of the first things I say to boys, I had lunch with someone who's a fairly famous news anchor and her son. And I asked the mom to excuse, they started going at it. And I asked the mom to excuse herself.
And I said to the mom, I'm like, you realize this is the only person in your life ever that wants you to be more successful than you. You just got to cut this shit out. This woman is not your enemy. And I heard that, and I was a bit ashamed because I remember, like, being such an asshole to my mother, you know?
So I think, but I think I could say that to him because I could look him in the eyes and say, what the fuck are you doing? So I just think that male involvement for single mothers, and I think men are really willing to get involved, whether it's someone down the street, a coach, you know, a sibling, your brother, whatever it is.
But I do think, again, the research shows that the point of failure is when a boy loses a male role model. And also to forgive yourself, being a single parent with a son, I think that's hard. I just think it's hard. Logan, you've got some questions I can see.
Oh, yeah. I do have some questions for Scott, but I would love for you to answer them too. So one of them is what is something about being a man that you learned growing up that you have had to unlearn? And I'm wondering specifically in how you're raising your sons to avoid some of those things.
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Chapter 8: What advice is there for young men struggling with modern societal pressures?
Here are some men's groups, you know, and I do a shitty job. I can't talk to all of them. A couple of them. I take the lazy way. I say, here's 500 bucks. Do better help online therapy. I'll pay for your first four sessions.
Yeah.
Just be, but I gotta be honest, I don't know.
I mean, I think we should put together this list of resources. And I feel like there are good guys out there. I put Chris Williamson in this group. I put both of you out there. Podcasts are how a lot of modern wisdom is being expressed right now, right? You don't go to church. You get your sermon through your AirPods. So, like, who are the guys that are saying healthy things?
And I feel like if we can fill their ears with the healthy messages of masculinity, we are taking away the space and the attention from the people that are really – are profiting from these negative messages. I think you need a place to send the people who email you.
Yeah. And I appreciate the offer and we should do this, but we should have a list that says, all right, what are you struggling with? And here are some Here are some resources or things you should think about.
But even what you both said to my answer or to my question around like what's the boot camp or what would you tell guys, like that's not a crazy list. I think it's like for a lot of these guys to have you as sort of a male role model of like – go to the gym, make money, be kind, look out for others. I just feel like that can be condensed into, and maybe that's what your new book is.
But truly, I think people are looking for a script with the lack of religion, lack of institution. We've lost all these scripts that tell people what to do. Let's write a new script.
It's on you, brother. You've got more tread on you. You've got, look at all these cameras. I'm
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