Scott. Do not get depressed by mean bots or toxic people. You are well admired by strangers like me who look for ways to uplift their lives. Thanks for having another great show
Thanks Scott, for hosting such a knowledgeable & well researched scholar. This was one of your *best ever!* Retired pediatric/adolescent psychiatrist & med school VP here
0:00 "We are overprotecting our children offline [real world / 'helicopter parents'] , and underprotecting them online" , so much wisdom, and best possible way to start this video!
These two are my favorite thinkers in the public zeitgeist. Their deliveries and calm tones are soothing and theories, work, and concepts are top notch. I would love to have a conversation with Prof G some day...
I’m 35, so right in that millennial pocket, got on Facebook my senior year of high school. Millennials are struggling, but boy, I can’t imagine how much worse off I’d be if I’d had social media in my pocket much earlier. When Johnathan talks about his Flourishing class and how young people do want to fix their habits and mental health, I think of HealthyGamer. What they’re doing is exactly in line with what Haidt is talking about and it’s a huge, flourishing, growing community comprised mostly of gen z. Thanks for the podcast, I’m new here and loving it. Keep up the good work. ❤️
Social media is no longer "social." It's hypnotical. Jonathan's book goes great with the mindfulness workbook called 30 Days Without Social Media by Harper Daniels. It's so important to detach the brain from social media for a decent amount of time, to have it return to balanced thinking without the excessive distractions.
Any observant boomer, as with many Gen Zs, watching this are saying “yes, Yes, YES!” and thought the same for some time now. I still applaud Haidt for organizing it in written form and publishing it for us. I especially agree, like everyone else, that smart phones and social media need to have restrictions with today’s youth. Many of today’s parents see childhood as the Serengeti, and it is hard to argue with their overprotectiveness. But I like Jonathan’s route to a solution.
What about GenX? It's always amusing how GenX gets skipped over as if not existing. We GenXers are used to being ignored and dismissed. No worries. We don't take any offense. There is some advantage to go under the radar. It creates a unique perspective. Anyway, GenX was the first generation to grow up with personal technology: video games, beepers, walkmans, proto-smartwatches, etc. And just as we hit adulthood, cellphones, internet, and laptops were taking hold. We grew up with the New Media. By the way, most GenZs have GenX parents. And so GenXers are directly involved in the present problem. We were so underparented as children that many of my peers have had an odd response in their own parenting style. Many GenXers overparent in the physical world for the reason they were underparented. But they underparent online because, though much of social media was created by GenXers, they don't realize why the changes of technology over their lifetime is so harmful. When we GenXers got into trouble, it was in the real world. Whereas media technology was just something extra to our lives. Many of us GenXers grew up with personal computers. But there simply wasn't the present online world. And tech addiction was more limited.
Gen X was not underparented. My grandparents were from the Greatest Generation. Their parents had very little involvement in their lives. My grandfather played baseball from 8 to 16. He said his parents never came to a game and he couldn’t remember any other parents coming. It was 100% the responsibility of the kids to keep track of their practice and game schedules and get themselves there and home walking or taking the streetcar in Philadelphia in the 1920s and 1930s.
Best thing I did was get off of social media about 8 years ago. It took me 6 years to get a 4 year degree, working a job I did not even need a degree for. 3 years into being media free, I switched careers into it and quickly had a rapid increase of pay and went from not being able to save to having more than my pre-It salary saved. Alhamdulillah. I always preach get off Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Get on apps like headway.
That it is destructive doesn't mean that it necessarily should be illegal. I was a kid before social media. Even then, there were parents that let their kids do destructive things. That their are parents that let their kids do destructive things doesn't necessarily mean there should be a law against it. I can guarantee that if social media were a thing when I was a kid that my parents would never have allowed it no matter how much I might've pressured them. Many of us heard the line that if your friends jumped off a bridge would you jump with them? Saying my friends are doing it didn't carry any weight with my parents, it depended on what the it was. Parents could give their kids a phone, but no data plan that would allow them access to social media, problem solved. Haidt was on a morning show this morning, and the host of the show were talking with a mom and a teen daughter who both admittedly had a problem with the amount of time spent on social media. That's a case of a parent setting a horrible example. There are parents that set horrible examples when it comes to drinking alcohol as well, and that can get to be very destructive, but it doesn't necessarily means there needs to be a law against alcohol. This guy rang a bell, and I recall that Haidt did a forum back in 2016. It's worth a watch, the title is The Forum: Right to Say: Freedom, Respect, and Campus Speech and is here on TH-cam. He talks about how generations past all had a mixture of activities some of which had someone in charge such as school or Little League baseball and others where it was entirely peer to peer such as playing baseball, skateboarding with friends, playing board games or video games, etc. Both are necessary because we do have those times when someone is in charge (such as at work) but on the other hand we don't have someone in charge around ALL the time even at work so we have, as adults, to have the ability to work things out in a peer to peer way. Haidt goes on to say that those born around 1980 and after didn't have both dynamics at work but always had an authority figure around, and there is a danger to self sufficiency there and the risk of developing an ethical dependence, always looking to an authority figure for guidance. As if to prove the point, the woman (Viviana Bonilla Lopez) who was a student representative in this forum asked the Haidt if she could speak after he was done saying what I just highlighted here. Yes, please! was his reaction. Haidt went on to say that such inability to solve things in a peer to peer way leaves people ripe to be accepting of authoritarianism. When I first watched that video they had comments which have unfortunately been removed and no new comments allowed. Anyway, this Haidt guy has mentioned in other videos that he's been in education since something like the late 1980s or early 1990s and over the years he has seen his conservative colleagues be chased out of education, and that he (despite being a leftist himself) is frightened of his leftist students. Now there just might be a lesson in that if he wants to learn it, it seems he is just THAT close.
Theres no evidence for that! The truth is that american society and culture are destroying the youth, depression and mental instability had been going up in teens since the 90s
Always pointing the finger, constantly looking externally for why you think less of yourself or for validation is problem and it isnt going away with the ban of social media.
Theres no proof that social media is the cause for the rise in depression and mental illness, especially when these things have been on rise since the early 90s
I think a closely related trend is how hybrid work affects adults. Thanks to COVID, many (young) adults are used to and even prefer dealing with people remotely / over Zoom, instead of in person. The cost / consequences of a poor interaction or relationship over Zoom are much less direct and palpable than when you work in the same physical location. e.g. I'm increasingly noticing adults who are very comfortable simply ignoring others' emails, or being rude or non-responsive in email communication in a way that I'd never seen before COVID.
Dude, my manager at my last job was a boomer, and the first to take the opportunity to go home. Then it was the gen Xers, followed by the millenials. Haidt is suppose to be so smart but man he misses the mark in such an obvious way to anyone that does even a tiny bit of research. Mental illness has been on the rise since 1990 but he conveniently starts the clock around 2010.
This is an interesting point actually. I'm a millennial and I love working from home. It's why I stay in my current job. However, that being said, when I do recruitment (monthly) the young people really seem to struggle to know how to behave. If they are always on their phones and not interacting face to face (other than school).. and then working remotely... yeah I've never realised how much that has impacted their ability to function in the adult world
building a generation of those resistant to the manipulating effects of the internet is probably going to be a huge boon for anyone who pulls it off, but its probably going to take a few generations, and the first ones are going to have it the roughest. Thanks scott great cast.
This has happened before. Socrates complained about the young generation that had higher rates of literacy. This led to class conflict as a growing middle class was getting educated by Sophists. Economic elites like Socrates felt moral panic about class status breaking down and the social order dissolving. A similar thing happened with moveable type printing presses, or at least once they became common. In the late colonial period, right before revolution broke out, books suddenly became all the rage and the young would be seen walking around with their face stuck in books. The older generations thought it was the end of the world. There was another moral panic about romance novels leading to suicide. And we now know from neuroscientific research that reading alters the brain and psychology. So, their fears were right in a sense. Yet all of society adapted after some generations.
Scott your perspectives and discussions about these and other similar topics have been so encouraging to me and so many other people who didn’t take the time to tell you. I hope you know the numbers of people like me who enjoy all you are far outweigh those bots and trolls.
Good questions by this interviewer and you let Haidt talk uninterrupted. Subscribed. Even though this topic is depressing and I'm not looking forward to the state of Western countries in 20 years when these kids are being put in control of things and are expected to take responsibility for or be competent in running the world.
im 20, trying to fix all the damage done by my semi phone childhood. and i aspire to find people who also want to leave the phone addicted world, and raise my future child with better values :D
Scott I love your discussions about the socialization of young people and the deep issues we are seeing now, not that there weren't issues before social media, but it's a great topic. I wish you'd discuss the Jedd foundation more on the show and what it's about or bring up some stats and topics on the podcast about specific issues with bullying and teen depression. More interviews like Professor Heidt.
His work responded to a very real statistic about self harm and mental health diagnoses sky rocketing in young girls. The only difference between this generation and the ones before is the phone. You can’t live in the world successfully if you don’t practice living in it regularly.
I have three kids and a PhD in sociology. Currently a full time homeschooling parent to a 9.5yo with multiple neurodivergent dx, a learning disability, an ED and rapidly accelerated learning/superior IQ. He does not thrive with a tribe/does relationships differently. I also have a toddler with type one diabetes who will require a phone from K-12 including capacity to text during class (T1D kids ‘text diabetes’ to their parents from dx thru college). We don’t all need the same thing. Equity! p.s. We don’t own a TV and nobody does social media in our house. Life’s too short for that sh**.
I feel the same way Scott! I'm 63 and still get triggered by things online. If I get triggered imagine what it does to a teenager with few coping mechanisms?
Here in Finland we are now having national discussions on banning phones during school. As a millenial who was among the first generations to get phones and the internet and popularization of video games in our late adolescents, it is easy to agree with Haidt on his assessment on how all of them changed our lives. Don't get me wrong, for me it was a passion and I became a software engineer for my 2nd degree (1st in pscyhology). But as much as I love technology, even I advocate for balance and I have rules for the use of technology. For instance whenever I go outside, my #1 rule is that I will not take my phone out and if I get a call, I will tell the caller I will call back later unless it's an emergency.
And youre more likely to raise mature children. Why? Because youre being a parent by actually PARENTING, instead of shirking your duties off on to the government or media companies
I was born in the 1960s, and I have a slightly different perspective. When I was growing up, there was lots of talk and fear around how much TV kids were watching: TV was ruining our lives, affecting our social lives, keeping us from learning skills, keeping us indoors, ruining our eyes, etc. Now, I’m not saying that there wasn’t some real concern there, but it wasn’t the end of the world. I watched entirely too much TV as a child, and still do and I’m sure it’s kept me from learning skills and being more social, but it wasn’t a threat to our society that many forewarned. I agree with all the recommendations that good doctor is proposing. I am a former teacher and hate the use of cell phones by student during the school day. But we need to keep perspective.
@@AlexJaneson I accept your point reservedly. Video games are highly addictive and so is TV, especially in the past when there was no internet. The other option was radio, comparatively boring.
There are some great books about fear-mongering and moral panic about media technology during the early Cold War. Many in the older generations thought that the young were being ruined and that it would be the doom of Western Civilization. There was also a fear about the affect of youth culture that their parents and grandparents didn't understand. Many saw Hollywood and Rock n' Roll as cultural indoctrination and propaganda, possibly controlled by the Soviet commies. It was the equivalent of right-wing reactionary rhetoric about 'Postmodern Marxism'. And to be fair, it did end up turning society on its head. But everything quickly settled down to a new normal. This pattern has repeated through out history with every change in media and technology, all the way back to Socrates fear about about the conflict of oral and literary culture. More relevant to the present, there was the period right before the American Revolution. With increased production and cheaper accessibility, books became all the rage and suddenly the young were reading all the time. Like kids today with smartphones, late colonial kids walked around with their faces stuck in books. The moral panic was that the popular romance novels were corrupting the young and leading them to moral dissolution, sometimes resulting in suicide. It's amusing today, in this age of mass literacy, to imagine the reactionary right of the past fear-mongering about books. But then again the reactionary right of today is still fear-mongering about books and censoring them. The more things change the more they stay the same.
@@learningisfun2108- In the early 1990s, I was in high school. I'd spend much of my time zoned out in front of cable tv. It was highly addictive. My childhood friend also played a lot of video games as a kid. And he's still addicted to video games. It's hard to understand how addictive were old technologies. As I pointed out in my other comment here, there was fear in the late colonial period about addiction to fiction books. Any new technology tends to be more immersive than what came before. And that immersiveness is what creates the conditions of addiction.
@@MarmaladeINFP I agree. Perspective is what I was aiming for and you point out the fear people had of addiction to fiction is a good example. And I’m sure there are people addicted to fiction today (pulp fiction, romance novels) just like the addiction to soap operas. But I battle against fear mongering, like the satanic panic of the ‘80s was going to be the end of our society, remember? Thanks for your reply.
Why are we just talking about kids here? Adults are also a complete disaster as a result of phones, tech, social media etc. More annual accidents and deaths are caused by distracted driving (phones) than alcohol even caused. We humans are devolving at an alarming pace.
Really enjoyed this. Thank you. (We jokingly refer to this as the "dilemma of the Steves" (Woz/Jobs): one invented the Apple ][--gateway to computer programming and Douglas Adams books and making games for others to play... and the other invented the iPhone--and destroyed the future of humanity by drowning it in pseudo-play.)
I agree with much of what is said here, but I have to point out that the early 1990s is when teen shootings soared in many inner city neighborhoods. And the tendency to keep kids from playing outside was at the time a reasonable response to this in many neighborhoods.
Parents in safe neighborhoods increasingly started making the same decision. News media transformed into pure sensationalism in the 80s and 90s, local news in particular shifted to stoking fear for entertainment/profit purposes, and everyone still watched the nightly news. Kids in safe areas also had their free time loaded up with structured enrichment activities rather than free play, in the wake of an economic boom where more people had college aspirations for their kids and generally "wanted it all" for their kids, whereas our parents were happy if we were fed and did our homework and chores. Childhood got turned into building an educational portfolio for college applications.
So teaching them to never find resolve on their own and rely soley on a selected authority for everything is the way to go then? Human beings have been successfully doing this for thousands of years. What about when families had 12, 16, 20 children?! You think the kids all stayed within a few feet of their parents so all their fusses could be adjudicated? Heck no! And they arent the generation of unstable neurotics.
As a GenXer in childhood, we worked out our own conflicts in most cases. There was some bullying, but surprisingly little. Generally, because we kids were so free to play together we had large friends circles. Pretty much every kid in my class during elementary school was a kid I played with. There was far fewer social division and cliques. Maybe new technology has exacerbated bullying, as some argue.
Scott has been used ChatGPT too much - 'talk about free play', 'talk about tribalism' ;D Edit in light of 20:00 - intended as light ribbing - love your content!
I am a lot more concerned about losing my job to AI and offshoring and paying my mortgage and bills and saving money for kids college. I don’t have a social media account. I would be a lot more happier if I was alone and living a virtual life with no worries about paying bills for 4 people and creating a future for them vs just me. Lot of good men suffer from just providing for their family and yet being tortured by their parents , wife’s and kids expectations. Men today are just earning machines to help the society keep its population and consumerism.
My gen G kids are gonna grow up and thank us later for not giving them a phone until much later. Parents who won’t let their 4th graders walk home from school don’t think twice about giving them a phone. Folks it’s not kids fault that they have their phones.
I wish the school board here in Hamburg Germany would ban phones in schools. Instead, they're still pushing the digitalization idea, and introducing iPads and tablets in grade 8. Phones are supposedly not allowed in schools, but who really follows the rules?
80's kids had ICQ and MSN messenger. Chatting and having contact lists with everyone at school came long before social media and it had the same effect on like half the people I know born 1980 to 1989. Then there was Myspace which was also huge, so millennials are pretty damn anxious and inept too imho.
Keep in mind that it began with GenXers. Many GenXers spent their childhoods and young adulthoods in the 80s. Born in 1975, I was in elementary school and middle school in the 80s and 90s. In those years, we had a video game system, a personal computer, and a VHS player. Then when I was a high schooler in the 90s, so much more was coming on the scene as you describe.
Media/Tech literacy should be taught as part of our national education starting at 1st grade & private companies do need to be compliant to fully verify all users. Squash those bots!🤖
Millennial women track kids today they forced their kids to carry phones and they know how fast their kid is driving. They know how many minutes a day they are on all the apps they know everything about their kids because they are using an app to track their kids while their kids carry their phones. women would chew their kids out if they did not have the phone because they were trying to evade their helicopter parents tracking apps
Parents are fearful due to school shootings when kids texted they were under fire; better gun regulation would mean less desire for the kids to have the phones all day.
Access to firearms was wayyyyyy easier in the 1950s to 80s. High Schooler's used to take their firearms to school regularly. It was common place to see a shotgun mounted on a trucks rack. No phones, but also no mass shootings. Guns didnt change, infact they have gotten harder to reach. The culture and socialization of kids is what changed. But everyone is so ready to scream about the symptom and take a faux moral high ground than to call out whats actually going on because, well, thats just too difficult.
The only problem i have with this guest is that he NEVER gives interviews to people that have a contrarian perspective... Mostly old guys like Scott, Bill Maher and rogan who praise him and let Haidt say whatever he wants with barely any pushback. Are there any contentious interviews he has given? The most pushback, if you can call it that, ive seen him get is in his latest Hard Fork interview
I do have concerned that the view presented is extremely narrow and the evidence cherry picked. It's not that I entirely disagree, if I think it's a lot more nuanced and complex. This sounds like simplistic reactionary moral panic and I know that is dangerous rhetoric.
.. Maybe try Between Us how culture creates emotion Batja Mesquita. Darwins Unfinished Symphony how culture created the human mind Kevin Laland. Look up Hyperkatifea and Koobs definition of his word. Gambling absolutely meets the definition of addiction ie a loss of behavioural control. So looks likely that this level of phone/screen usage is embodidly an addiction. And as stated its global +/- and the stable door is open, horse gone.
BTW the mammalian brain seems not to react, but preacts even though seems the former. The Affective lab at Northeastern leads much of the charge. The book Principals of Neural Design is all about this too.
Sometimes I think this is all overblown. My generation listened to Marilyn Manson, everyone thought that was going to destroy the youth. They are grandparents and have mortgage now.
Music has always been called that but music is short term and doesn't follow you everywhere. Even being picked on at school stopped at 2:15 when you went home. Now its 24/7. Also not just that but the types of unfiltered content. Kids on social act far different then in real life. We are not wired for this and it's tearing the entire society apart. Don't have to look far to see it. 10 year olds watching the Kardashian hoes and then trying to mimic it. It's all to much and needs to be addressed
I think every generation and race faced their own sets of problems. Every family needs to operate their own way of running their homes verses generalizing everyone. If any to be blame which I don’t hear anyone taking credit are the people who create these systems of operations (adults) who promote games, AI, VR etc. The school system have gone from writing to using chrome books etc. I think there is more than what he is saying about this issue. No different from doctors and psychiatrists who promote BiG Pharmaceuticals and medications 💊. Once again he’s not wrong I think the generalization is way off base. Not all kids or young adults struggling.
This generation of parents is the absolute worst. The admin is the most gutless. Teenagers need guidance and structure and the ableism by parents and admin has made me hate teaching. I loved teaching unquestionably until about five years ago when smart phones and social media took over. Parents are clueless. Hell most of them are phone addicts too. Admin are too scared to say or anything to upset the parents who think it’s important to able to text “sweetie do you want tacos or pasta for dinner tonight?” In middle of math class. Then they bitch to me why they’re struggling on tests.
If there is a much higher incidence of anxiety for millennials, maybe that can be accounted for by the increase in testing and diagnosis. There is much more attentive and involved parenting than in the past which could account for more parental anxiety and more testing. Think helicopter parents. Anyway, it’s just a thought. Y’all have a nice day.
Haidt skews his figures by restricting the scope of his presentation to figures that go back no no further than the year 2000 to make it look as if there is a clear connection between smartphones and social media and the uptick reported depression and self-harm. In the 1980's and 1990's the recorded rates of reported youth depression and self harm were actually higher at their peak than they are now. All of this long before modern social media and smartphones even existed. And if you go back even further than that you find other peaks that are almost as high but bear in mind some of them are likely to be even higher than the official figures because in the early 20th Century depression and self-harm rates for groups such as blacks or immigrants were very likely not much figured into those studies. As for suicide, Haidt never tells you that suicide rates remained stable or regressed in other first world countries with access to social media, or that US suicide rates are almost at any even level with those of the 1950s. Gee, that whole "we are living in a time of unprecedented teen depression and self-harm" claim of Jonathan Haidt's is suddenly not looking so unprecedented now, is it?
Scott. Do not get depressed by mean bots or toxic people. You are well admired by strangers like me who look for ways to uplift their lives. Thanks for having another great show
A nice thing to say.. Made my night,,, thanks. S
@@nickb220 he is
@@nickb220all of us are hypocritical
Always grateful for Scott.
As a teacher, phones are the bane of my existence!
As a school mental health therapist, phones are also the bane of my existence 😂
Me and my partner are both teachers and all of this stuff we've been talking about for over 5 years. Just happy somebody else is finally noticing it
@@fonglopaschuk70 As a student, phones are also the bane of my existence
Thanks Scott, for hosting such a knowledgeable & well researched scholar. This was one of your *best ever!* Retired pediatric/adolescent psychiatrist & med school VP here
0:00 "We are overprotecting our children offline [real world / 'helicopter parents'] , and underprotecting them online" , so much wisdom, and best possible way to start this video!
These two are my favorite thinkers in the public zeitgeist. Their deliveries and calm tones are soothing and theories, work, and concepts are top notch. I would love to have a conversation with Prof G some day...
Terrific book and terrific video episode Scott! P.S. Love NYU! I was there a long time ago! Cheers!! 🙂
Such an excellent man. Nice one prof
I’m 35, so right in that millennial pocket, got on Facebook my senior year of high school. Millennials are struggling, but boy, I can’t imagine how much worse off I’d be if I’d had social media in my pocket much earlier.
When Johnathan talks about his Flourishing class and how young people do want to fix their habits and mental health, I think of HealthyGamer. What they’re doing is exactly in line with what Haidt is talking about and it’s a huge, flourishing, growing community comprised mostly of gen z.
Thanks for the podcast, I’m new here and loving it. Keep up the good work. ❤️
I can’t believe I’m just discovering this show! Going back through the backlog now. Love the combo of humor, social critique, and market savvy.
Social media and its derivatives took the friction and difficulty out of everything, as long as you do it alone.
Social media is no longer "social." It's hypnotical. Jonathan's book goes great with the mindfulness workbook called 30 Days Without Social Media by Harper Daniels. It's so important to detach the brain from social media for a decent amount of time, to have it return to balanced thinking without the excessive distractions.
Any observant boomer, as with many Gen Zs, watching this are saying “yes, Yes, YES!” and thought the same for some time now. I still applaud Haidt for organizing it in written form and publishing it for us. I especially agree, like everyone else, that smart phones and social media need to have restrictions with today’s youth. Many of today’s parents see childhood as the Serengeti, and it is hard to argue with their overprotectiveness. But I like Jonathan’s route to a solution.
What about GenX? It's always amusing how GenX gets skipped over as if not existing. We GenXers are used to being ignored and dismissed. No worries. We don't take any offense. There is some advantage to go under the radar. It creates a unique perspective.
Anyway, GenX was the first generation to grow up with personal technology: video games, beepers, walkmans, proto-smartwatches, etc. And just as we hit adulthood, cellphones, internet, and laptops were taking hold. We grew up with the New Media.
By the way, most GenZs have GenX parents. And so GenXers are directly involved in the present problem. We were so underparented as children that many of my peers have had an odd response in their own parenting style.
Many GenXers overparent in the physical world for the reason they were underparented. But they underparent online because, though much of social media was created by GenXers, they don't realize why the changes of technology over their lifetime is so harmful.
When we GenXers got into trouble, it was in the real world. Whereas media technology was just something extra to our lives. Many of us GenXers grew up with personal computers. But there simply wasn't the present online world. And tech addiction was more limited.
Gen X was not underparented. My grandparents were from the Greatest Generation. Their parents had very little involvement in their lives. My grandfather played baseball from 8 to 16. He said his parents never came to a game and he couldn’t remember any other parents coming. It was 100% the responsibility of the kids to keep track of their practice and game schedules and get themselves there and home walking or taking the streetcar in Philadelphia in the 1920s and 1930s.
Your podcast is great. Pay no heed - it's all projection. Just feel compassion for such a difficult inner world that can create such vective.
Best thing I did was get off of social media about 8 years ago. It took me 6 years to get a 4 year degree, working a job I did not even need a degree for. 3 years into being media free, I switched careers into it and quickly had a rapid increase of pay and went from not being able to save to having more than my pre-It salary saved. Alhamdulillah.
I always preach get off Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Get on apps like headway.
FINALLY. This discussion needs to go viral. Kids shouldn't have smart phones. Period.
Great points in this dialogue. I work in education and cannot agree more: take the phones away. They are a net negative.
This is why social media apps should be illegal for teens. 18years old min, if not 25. meta and the rest are destroying our youth
That it is destructive doesn't mean that it necessarily should be illegal. I was a kid before social media. Even then, there were parents that let their kids do destructive things. That their are parents that let their kids do destructive things doesn't necessarily mean there should be a law against it. I can guarantee that if social media were a thing when I was a kid that my parents would never have allowed it no matter how much I might've pressured them. Many of us heard the line that if your friends jumped off a bridge would you jump with them? Saying my friends are doing it didn't carry any weight with my parents, it depended on what the it was. Parents could give their kids a phone, but no data plan that would allow them access to social media, problem solved. Haidt was on a morning show this morning, and the host of the show were talking with a mom and a teen daughter who both admittedly had a problem with the amount of time spent on social media. That's a case of a parent setting a horrible example. There are parents that set horrible examples when it comes to drinking alcohol as well, and that can get to be very destructive, but it doesn't necessarily means there needs to be a law against alcohol.
This guy rang a bell, and I recall that Haidt did a forum back in 2016. It's worth a watch, the title is The Forum: Right to Say: Freedom, Respect, and Campus Speech and is here on TH-cam. He talks about how generations past all had a mixture of activities some of which had someone in charge such as school or Little League baseball and others where it was entirely peer to peer such as playing baseball, skateboarding with friends, playing board games or video games, etc. Both are necessary because we do have those times when someone is in charge (such as at work) but on the other hand we don't have someone in charge around ALL the time even at work so we have, as adults, to have the ability to work things out in a peer to peer way. Haidt goes on to say that those born around 1980 and after didn't have both dynamics at work but always had an authority figure around, and there is a danger to self sufficiency there and the risk of developing an ethical dependence, always looking to an authority figure for guidance. As if to prove the point, the woman (Viviana Bonilla Lopez) who was a student representative in this forum asked the Haidt if she could speak after he was done saying what I just highlighted here. Yes, please! was his reaction. Haidt went on to say that such inability to solve things in a peer to peer way leaves people ripe to be accepting of authoritarianism. When I first watched that video they had comments which have unfortunately been removed and no new comments allowed. Anyway, this Haidt guy has mentioned in other videos that he's been in education since something like the late 1980s or early 1990s and over the years he has seen his conservative colleagues be chased out of education, and that he (despite being a leftist himself) is frightened of his leftist students. Now there just might be a lesson in that if he wants to learn it, it seems he is just THAT close.
when its causing kids to commit suicide yes, thats literally the reason for making it illegal@@Anon54387
Theres no evidence for that! The truth is that american society and culture are destroying the youth, depression and mental instability had been going up in teens since the 90s
Always pointing the finger, constantly looking externally for why you think less of yourself or for validation is problem and it isnt going away with the ban of social media.
Theres no proof that social media is the cause for the rise in depression and mental illness, especially when these things have been on rise since the early 90s
I think a closely related trend is how hybrid work affects adults. Thanks to COVID, many (young) adults are used to and even prefer dealing with people remotely / over Zoom, instead of in person. The cost / consequences of a poor interaction or relationship over Zoom are much less direct and palpable than when you work in the same physical location. e.g. I'm increasingly noticing adults who are very comfortable simply ignoring others' emails, or being rude or non-responsive in email communication in a way that I'd never seen before COVID.
Dude, my manager at my last job was a boomer, and the first to take the opportunity to go home. Then it was the gen Xers, followed by the millenials. Haidt is suppose to be so smart but man he misses the mark in such an obvious way to anyone that does even a tiny bit of research. Mental illness has been on the rise since 1990 but he conveniently starts the clock around 2010.
This is an interesting point actually. I'm a millennial and I love working from home. It's why I stay in my current job.
However, that being said, when I do recruitment (monthly) the young people really seem to struggle to know how to behave. If they are always on their phones and not interacting face to face (other than school).. and then working remotely... yeah I've never realised how much that has impacted their ability to function in the adult world
Great conversation and insights.
I'm 27 and I'm glad that I didn't get a cell phone really until about 16-17.
I’m so glad i grew up with social media and cell or smartphones . I don’t even want to know the amount of time we all waste on it
Thank you, Scott !
building a generation of those resistant to the manipulating effects of the internet is probably going to be a huge boon for anyone who pulls it off, but its probably going to take a few generations, and the first ones are going to have it the roughest. Thanks scott great cast.
This has happened before. Socrates complained about the young generation that had higher rates of literacy. This led to class conflict as a growing middle class was getting educated by Sophists. Economic elites like Socrates felt moral panic about class status breaking down and the social order dissolving.
A similar thing happened with moveable type printing presses, or at least once they became common. In the late colonial period, right before revolution broke out, books suddenly became all the rage and the young would be seen walking around with their face stuck in books.
The older generations thought it was the end of the world. There was another moral panic about romance novels leading to suicide. And we now know from neuroscientific research that reading alters the brain and psychology. So, their fears were right in a sense. Yet all of society adapted after some generations.
Great chemistry. Incredible talk
Scott your perspectives and discussions about these and other similar topics have been so encouraging to me and so many other people who didn’t take the time to tell you. I hope you know the numbers of people like me who enjoy all you are far outweigh those bots and trolls.
Good questions by this interviewer and you let Haidt talk uninterrupted. Subscribed. Even though this topic is depressing and I'm not looking forward to the state of Western countries in 20 years when these kids are being put in control of things and are expected to take responsibility for or be competent in running the world.
Oh gosh, this is so fascinating!What a great guest and interview!I have a million questions that I would love to ask him!
Two of my absolutely favorite minds. Wow!
im 20, trying to fix all the damage done by my semi phone childhood. and i aspire to find people who also want to leave the phone addicted world, and raise my future child with better values :D
Scott I love your discussions about the socialization of young people and the deep issues we are seeing now, not that there weren't issues before social media, but it's a great topic. I wish you'd discuss the Jedd foundation more on the show and what it's about or bring up some stats and topics on the podcast about specific issues with bullying and teen depression. More interviews like Professor Heidt.
THANK YOU FOR THIS SHOW!!!!
Hey, two of my favorite guests on Real Time with Bill Maher! Great discussion, gentlemen.
His work responded to a very real statistic about self harm and mental health diagnoses sky rocketing in young girls. The only difference between this generation and the ones before is the phone. You can’t live in the world successfully if you don’t practice living in it regularly.
The 80’s and 90’s were a time of increasing liability lawsuits so schools, organizations, and businesses were stopping free play.
I have three kids and a PhD in sociology. Currently a full time homeschooling parent to a 9.5yo with multiple neurodivergent dx, a learning disability, an ED and rapidly accelerated learning/superior IQ. He does not thrive with a tribe/does relationships differently. I also have a toddler with type one diabetes who will require a phone from K-12 including capacity to text during class (T1D kids ‘text diabetes’ to their parents from dx thru college). We don’t all need the same thing. Equity! p.s. We don’t own a TV and nobody does social media in our house. Life’s too short for that sh**.
I feel the same way Scott! I'm 63 and still get triggered by things online. If I get triggered imagine what it does to a teenager with few coping mechanisms?
Here in Finland we are now having national discussions on banning phones during school. As a millenial who was among the first generations to get phones and the internet and popularization of video games in our late adolescents, it is easy to agree with Haidt on his assessment on how all of them changed our lives. Don't get me wrong, for me it was a passion and I became a software engineer for my 2nd degree (1st in pscyhology). But as much as I love technology, even I advocate for balance and I have rules for the use of technology. For instance whenever I go outside, my #1 rule is that I will not take my phone out and if I get a call, I will tell the caller I will call back later unless it's an emergency.
Hyvää! You sound like a wise and intelligent young man. Keep it up.
Yeah my kids are not aloud to join social media until they can show enough maturity
And youre more likely to raise mature children. Why? Because youre being a parent by actually PARENTING, instead of shirking your duties off on to the government or media companies
Very valuable interview - Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg knowingly perpetrated one of the greatest crimes against kids ever
I was born in the 1960s, and I have a slightly different perspective. When I was growing up, there was lots of talk and fear around how much TV kids were watching: TV was ruining our lives, affecting our social lives, keeping us from learning skills, keeping us indoors, ruining our eyes, etc. Now, I’m not saying that there wasn’t some real concern there, but it wasn’t the end of the world. I watched entirely too much TV as a child, and still do and I’m sure it’s kept me from learning skills and being more social, but it wasn’t a threat to our society that many forewarned. I agree with all the recommendations that good doctor is proposing. I am a former teacher and hate the use of cell phones by student during the school day. But we need to keep perspective.
Social media is far more addictive than TV, and video games for that matter. Apples and oranges.
@@AlexJaneson I accept your point reservedly. Video games are highly addictive and so is TV, especially in the past when there was no internet. The other option was radio, comparatively boring.
There are some great books about fear-mongering and moral panic about media technology during the early Cold War. Many in the older generations thought that the young were being ruined and that it would be the doom of Western Civilization. There was also a fear about the affect of youth culture that their parents and grandparents didn't understand. Many saw Hollywood and Rock n' Roll as cultural indoctrination and propaganda, possibly controlled by the Soviet commies. It was the equivalent of right-wing reactionary rhetoric about 'Postmodern Marxism'. And to be fair, it did end up turning society on its head. But everything quickly settled down to a new normal. This pattern has repeated through out history with every change in media and technology, all the way back to Socrates fear about about the conflict of oral and literary culture.
More relevant to the present, there was the period right before the American Revolution. With increased production and cheaper accessibility, books became all the rage and suddenly the young were reading all the time. Like kids today with smartphones, late colonial kids walked around with their faces stuck in books. The moral panic was that the popular romance novels were corrupting the young and leading them to moral dissolution, sometimes resulting in suicide. It's amusing today, in this age of mass literacy, to imagine the reactionary right of the past fear-mongering about books. But then again the reactionary right of today is still fear-mongering about books and censoring them. The more things change the more they stay the same.
@@learningisfun2108- In the early 1990s, I was in high school. I'd spend much of my time zoned out in front of cable tv. It was highly addictive. My childhood friend also played a lot of video games as a kid. And he's still addicted to video games. It's hard to understand how addictive were old technologies. As I pointed out in my other comment here, there was fear in the late colonial period about addiction to fiction books. Any new technology tends to be more immersive than what came before. And that immersiveness is what creates the conditions of addiction.
@@MarmaladeINFP I agree. Perspective is what I was aiming for and you point out the fear people had of addiction to fiction is a good example. And I’m sure there are people addicted to fiction today (pulp fiction, romance novels) just like the addiction to soap operas. But I battle against fear mongering, like the satanic panic of the ‘80s was going to be the end of our society, remember? Thanks for your reply.
Two great brains-no waiting. Subbed!
Why are we just talking about kids here? Adults are also a complete disaster as a result of phones, tech, social media etc. More annual accidents and deaths are caused by distracted driving (phones) than alcohol even caused. We humans are devolving at an alarming pace.
I had the same thought.
Really enjoyed this. Thank you. (We jokingly refer to this as the "dilemma of the Steves" (Woz/Jobs): one invented the Apple ][--gateway to computer programming and Douglas Adams books and making games for others to play... and the other invented the iPhone--and destroyed the future of humanity by drowning it in pseudo-play.)
I'm a 90s kid and I'm always on edge
Thank you.
“We all just need to agree and do this one thing to fix it” 🙄🙄🙄
I agree with much of what is said here, but I have to point out that the early 1990s is when teen shootings soared in many inner city neighborhoods. And the tendency to keep kids from playing outside was at the time a reasonable response to this in many neighborhoods.
Parents in safe neighborhoods increasingly started making the same decision. News media transformed into pure sensationalism in the 80s and 90s, local news in particular shifted to stoking fear for entertainment/profit purposes, and everyone still watched the nightly news. Kids in safe areas also had their free time loaded up with structured enrichment activities rather than free play, in the wake of an economic boom where more people had college aspirations for their kids and generally "wanted it all" for their kids, whereas our parents were happy if we were fed and did our homework and chores. Childhood got turned into building an educational portfolio for college applications.
Letting children work out conflicts on their own sounds like a great way to encourage bullying.
So teaching them to never find resolve on their own and rely soley on a selected authority for everything is the way to go then?
Human beings have been successfully doing this for thousands of years. What about when families had 12, 16, 20 children?! You think the kids all stayed within a few feet of their parents so all their fusses could be adjudicated? Heck no! And they arent the generation of unstable neurotics.
As a GenXer in childhood, we worked out our own conflicts in most cases. There was some bullying, but surprisingly little. Generally, because we kids were so free to play together we had large friends circles. Pretty much every kid in my class during elementary school was a kid I played with. There was far fewer social division and cliques. Maybe new technology has exacerbated bullying, as some argue.
Scott has been used ChatGPT too much - 'talk about free play', 'talk about tribalism' ;D Edit in light of 20:00 - intended as light ribbing - love your content!
fabulous
I am a lot more concerned about losing my job to AI and offshoring and paying my mortgage and bills and saving money for kids college. I don’t have a social media account. I would be a lot more happier if I was alone and living a virtual life with no worries about paying bills for 4 people and creating a future for them vs just me. Lot of good men suffer from just providing for their family and yet being tortured by their parents , wife’s and kids expectations. Men today are just earning machines to help the society keep its population and consumerism.
Here in British Columbia, schools will be cell phone free zones between 'bell-to-bell' province wide, starting the new school year in Sep 2024.
My gen G kids are gonna grow up and thank us later for not giving them a phone until much later. Parents who won’t let their 4th graders walk home from school don’t think twice about giving them a phone. Folks it’s not kids fault that they have their phones.
So true!
Prof. #1 and # 2 ain't a gonna work. #3 and #4 yes. More recess!!!!
I wish the school board here in Hamburg Germany would ban phones in schools. Instead, they're still pushing the digitalization idea, and introducing iPads and tablets in grade 8. Phones are supposedly not allowed in schools, but who really follows the rules?
Haidt's recommendations are sensible and won't happen and we all know why.
80's kids had ICQ and MSN messenger. Chatting and having contact lists with everyone at school came long before social media and it had the same effect on like half the people I know born 1980 to 1989. Then there was Myspace which was also huge, so millennials are pretty damn anxious and inept too imho.
Keep in mind that it began with GenXers. Many GenXers spent their childhoods and young adulthoods in the 80s. Born in 1975, I was in elementary school and middle school in the 80s and 90s. In those years, we had a video game system, a personal computer, and a VHS player. Then when I was a high schooler in the 90s, so much more was coming on the scene as you describe.
I think giving kids in junior high a dog, instead of a cell phone is a way better trade off at that age!
Scott Galloway would make an excellent POTUS.
Media/Tech literacy should be taught as part of our national education starting at 1st grade & private companies do need to be compliant to fully verify all users.
Squash those bots!🤖
How do we resolve kids at school seeing their teachers, principals, and staff all on their phones all day? Hmmm
Need more Galloway, Fareed, Larry Diamond, Martin Wolf, ... ah ... Rana F. ...Robert Kagan ...
Unpluq is the answer.
Yes, that's Unpluq with a "Q" at the end.
Millennial women track kids today they forced their kids to carry phones and they know how fast their kid is driving. They know how many minutes a day they are on all the apps they know everything about their kids because they are using an app to track their kids while their kids carry their phones. women would chew their kids out if they did not have the phone because they were trying to evade their helicopter parents tracking apps
Parents are fearful due to school shootings when kids texted they were under fire; better gun regulation would mean less desire for the kids to have the phones all day.
Access to firearms was wayyyyyy easier in the 1950s to 80s. High Schooler's used to take their firearms to school regularly. It was common place to see a shotgun mounted on a trucks rack. No phones, but also no mass shootings.
Guns didnt change, infact they have gotten harder to reach. The culture and socialization of kids is what changed. But everyone is so ready to scream about the symptom and take a faux moral high ground than to call out whats actually going on because, well, thats just too difficult.
The only problem i have with this guest is that he NEVER gives interviews to people that have a contrarian perspective... Mostly old guys like Scott, Bill Maher and rogan who praise him and let Haidt say whatever he wants with barely any pushback.
Are there any contentious interviews he has given? The most pushback, if you can call it that, ive seen him get is in his latest Hard Fork interview
I do have concerned that the view presented is extremely narrow and the evidence cherry picked. It's not that I entirely disagree, if I think it's a lot more nuanced and complex. This sounds like simplistic reactionary moral panic and I know that is dangerous rhetoric.
.. Maybe try
Between Us how culture creates emotion Batja Mesquita.
Darwins Unfinished Symphony how culture created the human mind Kevin Laland.
Look up Hyperkatifea and Koobs definition of his word.
Gambling absolutely meets the definition of addiction ie a loss of behavioural control.
So looks likely that this level of phone/screen usage is embodidly an addiction.
And as stated its global +/- and the stable door is open, horse gone.
BTW the mammalian brain seems not to react, but preacts even though seems the former. The Affective lab at Northeastern leads much of the charge.
The book Principals of Neural Design is all about this too.
The kids aren’t alright, but the adults are worse! Way worse.
Sometimes I think this is all overblown. My generation listened to Marilyn Manson, everyone thought that was going to destroy the youth. They are grandparents and have mortgage now.
The threat of social media is not overblown. It’s harming children in almost every conceivable metric.
Music has always been called that but music is short term and doesn't follow you everywhere. Even being picked on at school stopped at 2:15 when you went home. Now its 24/7. Also not just that but the types of unfiltered content. Kids on social act far different then in real life. We are not wired for this and it's tearing the entire society apart. Don't have to look far to see it. 10 year olds watching the Kardashian hoes and then trying to mimic it. It's all to much and needs to be addressed
Single mothers supported by the taxpayers and not a father. Kids need wisdom.
I think every generation and race faced their own sets of problems. Every family needs to operate their own way of running their homes verses generalizing everyone.
If any to be blame which I don’t hear anyone taking credit are the people who create these systems of operations (adults) who promote games, AI, VR etc.
The school system have gone from writing to using chrome books etc.
I think there is more than what he is saying about this issue. No different from doctors and psychiatrists who promote BiG Pharmaceuticals and medications 💊.
Once again he’s not wrong I think the generalization is way off base.
Not all kids or young adults struggling.
This generation of parents is the absolute worst. The admin is the most gutless.
Teenagers need guidance and structure and the ableism by parents and admin has made me hate teaching. I loved teaching unquestionably until about five years ago when smart phones and social media took over.
Parents are clueless. Hell most of them are phone addicts too. Admin are too scared to say or anything to upset the parents who think it’s important to able to text “sweetie do you want tacos or pasta for dinner tonight?” In middle of math class.
Then they bitch to me why they’re struggling on tests.
If there is a much higher incidence of anxiety for millennials, maybe that can be accounted for by the increase in testing and diagnosis. There is much more attentive and involved parenting than in the past which could account for more parental anxiety and more testing. Think helicopter parents. Anyway, it’s just a thought. Y’all have a nice day.
Haidt skews his figures by restricting the scope of his presentation to figures that go back no no further than the year 2000 to make it look as if there is a clear connection between smartphones and social media and the uptick reported depression and self-harm.
In the 1980's and 1990's the recorded rates of reported youth depression and self harm were actually higher at their peak than they are now. All of this long before modern social media and smartphones even existed. And if you go back even further than that you find other peaks that are almost as high but bear in mind some of them are likely to be even higher than the official figures because in the early 20th Century depression and self-harm rates for groups such as blacks or immigrants were very likely not much figured into those studies.
As for suicide, Haidt never tells you that suicide rates remained stable or regressed in other first world countries with access to social media, or that US suicide rates are almost at any even level with those of the 1950s.
Gee, that whole "we are living in a time of unprecedented teen depression and self-harm" claim of Jonathan Haidt's is suddenly not looking so unprecedented now, is it?
Don't forget when gen z was born glyphosate and other toxins began to drench all of our crops.