S3 E6 - SOCIAL MEDIA & SPORTS

Season 3, Episode 6: Social Media & Sports — with Dr. Valerie Gruest

One spelling note first: the transcript reads "Valerie Gruest" consistently throughout, except one self-introduction moment where it's transcribed "Gruost" — almost certainly an ASR mishearing. I've used Gruest everywhere; worth a quick double-check against her own bio before this goes out.

Dr. Gruest — a Northwestern alum, 2016 Olympic swimmer for Guatemala, and now an assistant professor of strategic communication at New Mexico State — joins Glenn and Wayne to talk about what social media is actually doing to young (and not-so-young) athletes.

In this episode:

• The research: heavier social media use tracks with more anxiety, depression symptoms, and loneliness — and today's kids process something like 54x the daily information their grandparents did
• Body image predates the feed — swimming's "smaller, leaner" culture starts at age 4 or 5; social media just adds a second, harder-to-escape layer of comparison
• The number that stops the room: ~54% of elite aquatic athletes report an eating disorder or body-image issue
• A practical framework for parents and coaches to walk an athlete through a harmful post, instead of just telling them to get off their phone
• Wayne's coaching angle: "you can't out-influence the influencers" — the coach-athlete relationship is the one thing content can't replace (same argument he makes about AI in coaching)
• Not just kids — Glenn brings up the "Enhanced Games" and supplement marketing aimed at older ex-athletes
• Why blanket phone bans don't work — and what to do instead on deck