Jonathan Haidt: Porn and social media are killing childhood
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 เม.ย. 2024
- 📰 Subscribe to UnHerd today at: unherd.com/join
UnHerd's Flo Read meets Jonathan Haidt to discuss the dangers of modern technology for younger generations.
Watch it on the UnHerd website:
Listen to the podcast: plnk.to/unherd?to=page
Since 2012, youth mental health across the West has steadily declined. Jonathan Haidt is an American social psychologist, co-author of bestseller The Coddling of the American Mind and author of the new book The Anxious Generation. His theory is simple: the introduction of smartphones to children around 2011 accelerated the crisis of social media addiction. He joins UnHerd's Florence Read to discuss parenting, porn and the age of anxiety.
Follow UnHerd on social media:
Twitter: / unherd
Facebook: / unherd
Instagram: / unherd
TikTok: / unherdtv
// TIMECODES //
#UnHerd #socialmedia #anxiety
No kid below the age of 18 should have a smartphone. And all phones should be banned in the classroom.
The exception should be a flip-phone. No internet access ...
@@jamescalifornia2964 Not even sure about a flip. If there's texting capability then no.
16
Mothers want their children to be contactable and for them to be able to easily call them.
Peer pressure is a formidable force.
I'm a primary school teacher and you won't believe the amount of primary school kids who have mobile phones and the amount who are on tiktok. Parents are clueless
Obviously you have never been a parent.:)
They’re addicted. And in Portland Oregon, your children are provided CPS and Police telephone numbers should “your parent say anything you don’t like …” 👀
As Depeche Mode used to say, "Sheeple are sheeple and breed like bunnies, you must learn to love their mediocrity."
Or something like that. Maybe ;)
I begged my brother to not give his kids phones but he simply refused to believe how damaging they are. He thinks they’d come with health warnings and age restrictions, like cigarettes and alcohol, if they were. He uses his phone so little that he wouldn’t watch this if I sent it to him 😢
@@deejay8ch It is unfortunate that birth rate and IQ (of those who might reproduce) are inversely related in a society free from plague and warfare.
Big tech is the new big tobacco. Hugely addictive, hugely profitable, but hugely damaging.
As a smoker I could add that cigarettes may damage your body. Social media however destroys your mind.
(I've known over a dozen people who got cancer and none of them smoked. And have known a handful of smokers (in their 90ties) and none of them got cancer. Does smoking increase the chance that you get cancer, yes. Is it a guarantee? No.)
Agreed. Social media should come with a warning label that even casual use can cause addiction, mental disorders, loneliness, and often leads to blue hair and piercings.
👌 Best comment in the thread .
@@jdwalzand scribbled tattoos
Oh lord no! It’s exponentially worse than a pack a day!
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society" - Krishnamurti
The Eden Express (1975)
All of psychiatry wants to break good people into learned helplessness and make them dependant.
Why?
Cui bono?
This is a silly, shallow quotation: the sort of thing that sounds profound until you actually think about it. There is no such thing as a "sick" society. Societies exist to enable humans to live and reproduce. As long as they fulfill those functions, they are ipso facto not "sick" in any sense, and thus, people who are "well-adjusted" to them are able to live longer, happier lives. The opposite of a "sick" society is, essentially, a lack of anything that may reasonably be called a "society," e.g. during a vicious civil war or an ongoing genocide. Thomas Hobbes was right and remains right. Our current civilisation is very fragile, and any successful attempt to "remake" society from the ground up will result in the deaths of hundreds of millions, if not billions. Be happy you have a society, even if it is imperfect.
@@DieFlabbergast I profoundly disagree! Firstly humans don't need society to reproduce and to eat and secondly there are a multitude of things that a society can be based on that could be considered 'sick' and they usually involve authority of one group over another and it being enforced brutally and where being a psychopath is beneficial.
@@DieFlabbergast I sincerely recommend you read The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté.
No phones allowed in our middle and high schools. Best thing that ever happened!!
School or classrooms?
Life is not easy, its problem. People more knowledge but life is more harder, why😂
As a kid in the 1970's we played outside all day, talked to each other face to face. Sometimes a kid found a playboy magazine and we gathered around it in awe. But then we moved onto the next thing which was sport or a rope swing in the park. As long as we got home before dinner our parents didn't mind where we were. Life was fun and we found out about sex slowly and naturally.
Yeah, "naturally". From playboys and other stupid children.
Now young men find their bodies don't respond to real women, because they're not stimulating enough. Young women feel they're expected to give BJs and engage in kinkier sex; normal sex is boring and uncool.
No longer "we are amusing ourselves to death" but "we are abusing ourselves to death"?
It is mind blowing to think the solution is to remove the phone, yet removing the phone is _so difficult_ that almost no parent does it.
It’s a circular trap
Gun control, the war on drugs, etc. Ban the dangerous thing rather than strengthen the users.
@@c3bhm a child cannot be "strengthened" against the harms of social media and porn. That's as ridiculous as saying they should be allowed to access alcohol, drugs and tattoos as long as they are "strengthened" first.
Parents are fucking pussies.
@@c3bhmhow well is strengthening children against bullets going in America?
It's not difficult. They haven't even tried
Yup, many years ago I started watching porn with my gf.
It messes your head in the same way that drugs do, see when you take drugs they make you feel better than reality ever does, it makes normality boring.
Porn is similar, it gets harder to get turned on and that leads to a descent into debauchery.
That was me when I was in my 20s, to think that children are seeing these things is truly scary, they have no idea what healthy sex and relationships are. The problems this is creating will echo through the generations.
Staying vanilla is the goal.
I know a guy who needs to watch prn to 'get into it' when he brings a girl over.
He's unintentionally rewired his hormonal and chemical and neurological systems to adapt to pornographic stimuli.
Worked with another guy who had to drive home mid shift to watch porn, just to make it through an 8 hour shift.
It seems so harmless upfront.
What a time to be alive.
@@jameslove-vani797 that's the one, rewired indeed
That and social media are why so many disgusted young girls no longer wish to be (or even "identify themselves as") women (ie receptacles for men)
Vanilla for life.
The main issue is a society that is anti-human and parents without free time to be with their kids, and let the screens take over because they are too exhausted since they spend over 12y per day with work (commute+ work+ other things work related+ 2nd job a lot of the times). Kids go to social media because they are basically alone.
That's our glorious civilization for you.
Yeah I tend to see conversations about this that go roughly as follows
Person 1: Kids are getting out of hand parents need to be more involved with them, spend more time, do more activities and take smart devices away!
Person 2: ok sure, I totally agree, so shall we increase wages or shorten work hours in order to facilitate that?
Person 1: COMMUNIST!!!!
I am a dutch teacher. I taught from 2010 to 2022. And i saw this, and tried to talk about it, but somehow it was just impossible.
Things are changing. I hope we can all read jonathan haidt and let reason rule.
Im 32, i developed a phone addiction at work, I started listening to music at work, music turned into podcasts, now there is hardly a moment i don't have something playing in the background, kids don't stand a chance
Bullseye 🎯. Kids are very damaged. I was a high school teacher for 32 years and retired last June. Many kids sit alone in the halls and anxiety is thru the roof. In my last 2 years it was hell to keep kids away from their 📱 and disrespect grew exponentially.
I believe you about the state of things. But what happened specifically in the last four years? It was the COVID panic and school closures. Abusive media consumption is a consequence, not the cause.
You can’t vote, drink or drive until 18. Same should be for smart phones.
Politicians have vetoed this as they are employees of the elite. It's why NOTHING changes in the USA. The elite run everything under the camaflage if democracy.
Problem is they will find a way to get them, the same way they find a way to get and use drugs :(
You can decide to get the jab before turning 18, though.:):)
@@evad7933 ... and even get official support if you decide to ruin your ability to procreate for the rest of your life. You'd preferably even be MUCH younger than 18 to decide that.
@@jasminealixandranorthSo as a parent just give them the drugs? That doesn't make sense. I never smoked, drank, or did drugs as a child or teen, neither did any of my friends. Plenty of kids will follow rules and as long as they are not completely a lone they will find each other.
The devolution of humanity.
I call it "devil"ution....
@@heidilee658please stop that. Devil is fantasy. This video deals with reality. There is no need to add supernatural components to this serious subject.
Modern day 'Fall of the Roman Empire'.
@@tangerinetangerine4400 Spoken like a true hylic. Irenaeus predicted this.
Not all of humanity, just this civilization
One of the greatest memories of living in the 70's,80's and 90's was, which I think were the best times for humanity, no social media. People were productive,ambitious, creative, united, respectful and family oriented. We've lost that.
🤣🤣🤣
I feel sorry for you. Also crime was worse back then.
The '90s were my peak decade, when I was in my 30s. Peace & prosperity. A wide variety of activities & organizations with which I was involved & through which I made great friendships. A very active social life doing healthy & productive things. My confidence & self-esteem were over the moon & I did SO many interesting things! I wish there was some way to go back, but there's not. Life has been pretty difficult for the last 20+ years. People have become hateful, polarized, more tribal, & making friends has been difficult.
@@DonnaBrooks I totally agree.Remember, you have that great memory embedded in your mind that will never erase, one of the best times to be alive for sure. 🙂I don't know what today's generation will etch in their memory? Ideologies?
@@DonnaBrooks Sounds like a you problem. The 1990s were homophobic as hell. Sexual harassment was terrible. Deal with change, lean into it l.
I hope Haidt's next book is about how social media and smartphones are destroying the mental health of adults!
But traditional hetero relationships are no longer viable.
Or how the kids who grow up on this isht will turn out as adults.
MSM does far more damage to adult mental health than social media.
I was a teacher for 40 years in UK. I observed the change in that time. Physical and mental health, confidence, trust, ability to form relationships and to see the connectivity of things all appeared to lessen.
The worst thing now is that teaching colleges are actually encouraging teachers to use more and more smart-phone technology in classrooms, (apps, etc)
And alao, being a teacher is much more dangerous in my experience. The slightest social misstap and you can be in trouble. Its a minefield. I stepped out.
@@p382742937423y4 I had a colleague who was an excellent chemistry teacher; he made a joke to his form group (comprising of 17 and 18 year olds) and because one student was offended he lost his job. Senior management didn't care that there is a national shortage of chemistry teachers, or that his absence would put additional strain on the department. One teenager's feeling of offence was more important than the learning outcomes of his other classes.
me too!
How about the idea that mental has not deteriorated but that there has merely been a change in the way it is being described. Is it possible that normal emotions are being pathologised for profit?
Today, I watched a primary child of around 7-8 years old on the train. He wore thick glasses and had his face completely absorbed in his I-phone watching a video as he scarfed down candy. Witnessing this child doing these unhealthy things really brought it home that we are not going in the right direction.
Where is this kid going to be at 16
And of course, your behaviour, as a child, was entirely healthy.:):)
@@evad7933 Touche ! Just pointing out an observation that relates to the topic of social media and how it takes over people's lives as did TV when I was a kid.
“Analog experiences” is such a dystopian phrase
Why?
I was in high school when cell phones were really becoming a thing. (Class of 2002)
I specifically remember asking, "Why would kids need cell phones? What are they gonna do? Call their baby sitters?"
This was before "smart" phones dumbed everyone down.
Class of 2002. GRANDMA??
The main thing is that YOU are not dumbed down.:)
Smart phones can be used smartly (eg accessing puzzles, data, correct spelling). They can also be used stupidly.
Phones should be banned in school.
Add to the phone issue the lock downs. What a total disaster that was.
There do exist schools where phones are not to be brought to class.
Waldorf schools, which rich Silicon Valley executives like to send their kids to, are almost completely technology free.
Drug dealers don't get high on their own supply
@@alexandrawalton1392 Many users sell drugs to finance their own addiction.
As a woman, it is honestly scary to me what men expect from sex these days. I'm lucky that I've only been physical with two men - but that's two too many if you ask me as neither was my husband. Both were relatively reasonable men yet both tried to coerce me into sexual stuff I was not comfortable with / was objectively gross because they'd seen it in porn. I am single and would like to marry but at the same time feel lucky to not be responsible for fulfilling the pornography-driven perversions of any man. I'm sorry that my view of sexuality is so bleak - this is what porn has done.
It’s scary as a married woman. I honestly don’t know how my husband can avoid looking at that stuff because it’s pushed everywhere now. I can’t even look at his phone without seeing some porno looking girl on it and I think he is more careful than the average guy but it’s being pushed everywhere. I honestly have pretty bad anxiety over what he’s possibly looking at on his phone. He says he doesn’t look at that but we know guys lie about it. 😓 I think if our marriage ended I wouldn’t be able to be with another man due to this issue. It makes me sick. I hope you find someone with the same values you have.
Fighting with your kids, trying to restrict, and monitor these smart phones is a losing battle especially if your spouse isn't on the same page as you. IF it were up to me I'd flat out take the dam thing away. They can have one when they can afford one themselves.
Hammer, meet phone.
First step is to ensure your spouse understands the risks and is willing to work with you.
You are truly weak and useless.
In theory I might disagree with this but in actuality I think I agree. Yet another good thing gone bad.
Damn straight.
It’s never occurred to me that it would be appropriate for someone under the age of 16 to have their own smart phone or any personal and possibly private internet connection.
Once you allow internet access, which is now required to do homework assignments, the restriction rationale is defeated. Smart phones are simply seen as extended internet access. I would argue that this started with the internet, and smart phones were a catalyst that accelerated the process.
@@dilvishpa5776 Smart phones aren’t required. They have internet access at school and can have supervised access at home on devices that do not belong to them.
Yeh, 17 is okay. All brains undergo an amazing transformation the night before the 17th birthday.
Re: waiting to be an expert before you become a You Tuber - This reminded me of college students who, when I asked what they were doing in their new jobs, they would all say, "I'm a consultant." And I would be thinking, "Consultant? A consultant is someone who has many, many years of expertise who THEN goes out into the world to share their knowledge." Ridiculous!
You'd think. Unfortunately the world no longer acts rationally.
But everyone's 'lived experience' means they are an expert
there's a new niche of consultants because tech is moving so fast - the established senior workers can't keep up and all their years of experience is becoming fast redundant - and the new kids are hip with the apps and ai = so they become the consultants
@@underbelly69 AI is nowhere near as much of a thing as it's proponents would like you to belive. Only a fool would waste money on a "consultant" because they are a kid who knows an app. And the most important part of IT is neither AI nor apps. It's the old fashioned infrasturcture behind everything that makes the toys "apps and AI" work.
@@petercollingwood522 check the advances in accounting packages - power to sift screeds of data finding trends without subjective lack of attention span - the upgrades are real - and I know of situations where senior staff are reluctant to learn all the new processes expected of latest software upgrades.. so this falls on new employees who are not afraid of the future.. even in my own field I have become somewhat of a consultant because the curiousity is out there for ai - and its the ai users who have the understanding more than those who are resisting.. i agree ai is not the be all yet - but it's creating a new niche of consultants
I’d rather my children smoke cigarettes than be on social media
Define social media please. Does it include the internet, generally?
@@evad7933 to a degree, mainly social media though.
I sincerely appreciate this interview as a mother of three 15 year olds. I am committed to asking for support at the school board level and to unite around this knowledge for the sake of our kids and society at large.
Currently, not only are phones allowed in the school in my county, but the schools post pictures from school events on Instagram. This does not help parents who want to keep their kids off such social media and in fact gives kids a valid reason to want to go on it, ie the school is posting pictures of me and I want to see it. Argh!
Also, I live in a fairly affluent area, and I do not see parents uniting around these ideas, instead I see parents wanting to be the cool parent who not only let their kids have social media but act as their desiganted drivers or worse drink alcohol with their kids. In other words, parents are not doing well, and I think this has significantly increased coming out of the pandemic. So, my only route to gain traction in my aera is via the school board. Wish me luck!
Johnathan Heidt and Abigail Shrier, Together are both onto the cause s behind the mental health issues of todays youth. social media/Phones, helicopter parenting and the psychologising of every emotion, teaching kids to fixate on their emotions and mental state. All a tragic mix.
So glad to hear this discussion of the negatives impacts of unfettered access and exposure to pornography on children. I can't imagine how warped young people's "perceptions" about sex and sexuality are now becoming through viewing "adult" sexual fantasies acted out as if those fantasies are "normative" and what to expect when you "grow up."
Nobody knows what is 'normal' with sexual tastes because proper, reliable research is nigh on impossible.
@@evad7933 - agreed, but I'm guessing we can also agree that "normal" in any historical sense - would not be the word we would use to describe today's world in which an 11 year old girl can get a link on her smartphone from a friend - and a moment later find herself watching graphic video of a glassy eyed 18 year old girl sexually servicing five grown men at one time? Why would anyone be surprised if that 11 year old girl's discomfort and confusion in response to what she just witnessed found refuge in the notion that her teacher just shared with her class about "gender" that introduced the idea that perhaps she was just - "born in the wrong body" - and might thus have an avenue to avoid such an objectified dehumanized future as a human sex toy. The answer to her current discomfort being to instead embrace a life-time of chemical and physical mutilation and fantasy - all encouraged and sanctioned by what should be the supposed adults in the room.
The problem today is that for a while now both adults and children have been discouraged from staring into space, from being and enjoying being idle. No wonder so many people flip when somebody else has wasted “two minutes of my time”. When people are taught that it “looks weird” to appear “lost” to the world in public, on a bright and glorious day for example, it only compels the very young to dip their heads down into ridiculous tiny, tyrannical screens and appear to be doing something - for appearance’s sake. The only interesting places seem to be always everywhere else but their own immediate surroundings. This will destroy kids.
The late Neil Postman's 1994 book "The Disappearance of Childhood " is still relevant today.
oh I've not read that, but i love his book Technopoly. Excellent
Unlike Haidt, Postman actually knew what he was talking about and didn't wed his critique to marketable moral panics about campus politics and political polarization.
@@matthewcaldwell8100 what nonsense. Haidt knows what he is talking about. He takes a different approach and has a different perspective to Postman.
@@just_another32 Yes, a worse one
@@matthewcaldwell8100 pah!
Ostracism/banishment was often thought of as a punishment worse than death by traditional societies. The fear of that hanging over a someone's head for their whole life is a recipe for anxiety. The social trends pushing everyone into lonely exile is a recipe for widespread depression. Yeah, obviously. Who can stop it?
My youngest granddaughter got an I phone at 8 yrs old too young. It was for her safety right. I noticed that parenting was much less and parents spent less time with the kids. There was no bedtime and somedays granddaughter was on the phone on school nites til 11 pm. This cant be good for her
So did you talk to the parents about your youngest granddaughter.
Is there anywhere that Jonathan he’s created a presentation aimed at 11-15 year olds? I’d like to be able to sit my children down in front of something like that, so they can really understand why I’m reluctant over internet and phone use.
Would that work though? You can't talk a kid out of something like that... at least not the kids I know.
Would that work though? You can't talk a kid out of something like that... at least not the kids I know.
People don't socialize in person routinely among friends/family within a tribe. Even existing relationships are atomized; friends don't overlap in a group where everyone is close with each other. Instead, people's friends often have no connection to each other and you have a disorganized clusterfuck. Isolation is invisible to people because they see atomized relationships as a counterpoint to isolation, when in fact it is a feature. How many people can say they have a tribe or a real identifiable community? How many people can say they socialize within a community of people who are all close with each other and work together daily? That's what we're missing. Physical contact and closeness is integral to building close relationships and safety. Instead people torture themselves and each other by interacting with strangers both online and in real life through jobs, housing, shopping. We never get to build that deeper trust and intimacy that is soothing, healing and meaningful. It is torture to keep oneself hanging in the limbo of strangers, always a drifter with no place to call home.
I work at a highschool in Pasadena CA. The phone usage is ridiculous. I currently am dealing with my student with autism and DS not being able to " handle or process" social media.
It is hard not to believe there are sinister forces at work. Minds have become so warped from so early on.
There is no puppet master.
Humans seek novelty and need to escape boredom. This is the root cause. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are just taking advantage of this propensity.
@@Douglas_Gillette Have you forgotten how FB whistle blowers actually admitted it was fun to be the puppet master????
I'm a carpenter and hold no degrees but as a parent I try very hard to keep learning and stay sharp. If what I've been hearing about the World Economic Forum and their plans for creating a new kind of "enlightened" global citizen holds some truth then I would say there are indeed puppet masters exploiting the human condition of novelty and escape.
History has a way of appearing rosier than it was. Maybe the 'good old days' were not so good.
@@griffinsdad9820 There's no need to look for conspiracies. What is the point in that? There is still a problem to be solved. The obvious puppetmasters are the people who built / build & make BILLIONS OF DOLLARS from our gadgets & social media!! Sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one. IDK why you seem to think that Big Business can't have nefarious purposes that are simply profit-driven.
I actually did some cleaning while listening to this. Our kids (11 and 13) do not have their own phones. We have 2 desktops in the living room which they can play on for a limited time every day, and they can also use our phones if they need to communicate with their friends.
Excellent interview! Flo has excellent interviewing skills and I felt her contributions to the interview were just as compelling and insightful as Jonathan's.
She has Freddie's mannerisms.
yeh. i think i prefer freddy's style, but this was good
@@just_another32 She has modelled herself on him. I suppose we all copy to some extent.
@@evad7933 they may have just gone to the same school or hangout in he same bubble. This can happen sometimes.
😂😂😂@@just_another32
Unheard, thank you for another incredible interview. A great conversation.
Interestingly during COVID online gaming allowed my son to keep interacting with his friends. However by the end of lockdown they were all sick of it and time spent online gaming reduced dramatically from pre-COVID levels. Social media is a different story and has proved a huge distraction. Everyday I’m grateful for growing up in a pre social media age.
That’s your son but as Jonathan pointed out, 5 - 15% of kids is prone to addiction. How many children developed an unhealthy relationship with gaming during pandemic?
@@terrorbilly1 I wasn’t presenting a counter argument just an observation.
Florence is the best interviewer
🤣🤣🤣
She is obviously attempting to copy her mentor.
I did well in school. I did well in university. I went on to get a postgraduate degree. Since then I have never been able to get a real job. I don't blame video games for that, I blame hiring managers.
Hiring managers are a weak link in Corp America -- if I had a quarter for every time I was asked = "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" How fkg silly?!?!?! I can only hope that is long since past. But it illustrates how things go wrong. Ironically, the frauds benefit greatly with questions like that by responding 'running the company' or "Senior VP" or other extreme BS.
The problem with the Furby analogy is that you have to extend it to all the adults constantly interacting with Furbies as well.
Is 'furby' (furbie?) 32:51 same as 'furry' (furrie?)
@@annlouise8909Google Furby. Classic piece of junk pitched to kids during children's TV shows that's now filling up landfills everywhere.
@@annlouise8909 No, Furby was an electronic furry creepy robot toy that spoke gibberish and sang in a disturbing voice.
Delete your social media accounts people!
It goes deeper than just friendships. It has gone down to the level of interfering with people forming romantic relationships. Dating has been commodified on social media now too. Both men and women will straight up refuse people based on entirely superficial factors now that they have a seemingly infinite choice of potential partners a stone's throw away online. Think about it: if you had a realistic chance of getting a partner who is a supermodel, would you go for the OK looking accountant? Of course not. This only adds to the depression.
This illusion of choice combined with the collective man-hating of modern feminism has poisoned relationships amongst under the 30s in the West.
I have worked in secondary schools for 10 years in London and in all classrooms blanket ban on phones are enforced and one girls school had a robust cyberbullying policy and peer to peer conflict resolution
Then they go home and stare at Instagram and TikTok for hours.
that's great.
Flo and Jon two of my favs. roll on, you guys. and this is one of the most terrifying vids i've ever.
Smartphone coincides with huge uptick in ‘trans’ identification, esp autistic girls.
But it’s not social contagion 🤦♀️
❤
Many thanks. I've forwarded this to my son as I have a grandson reaching these years.
We have a 14 year old high schooler, the school gives them notebooks. He has no other device or phone. We have to put limits on the notebook, otherwise he would be on it all night. He is addicted to it. It's been such a crazy experience. I have so much to say on this...
Parents are not clueless, it's just that under the pressure from school (assignments are on line, homework on line) & the popularity of cell phones (companies making money of it) parents are loosing the battle with public school system & phone companies.
Parents are absolutely clueless and lazy. Both things are true.
@@henrytep8884and weak. A good parent knows how to say no to their child.
@@tangerinetangerine4400 yes it’s weird that we blame kids for the society adults build and support. It’s like asking a kid to pay the mortgage when it’s suppose to be the responsibility of the adults. It just weird that the speaker gives prescription but none of it relies on collective action to vote against these things. I would give him more credibility for proposing one idea we all can and should vote on, like sir if you don’t want cellphones at school, give us a clear path to make that happen.
I have a relative who gave free rein to his stepdaughter and daughter - resulting in two over sexualized narcissist zombies, obsessed with social media. They are now middle aged - and there has been no personal growth or evolution. Sad.@@tangerinetangerine4400
I agree many don’t realise just how dangerous they are. I tried to warn my brother who, with his wife who makes all decisions, gave them to his kids aged 11 and he just thought if they are as dangerous as I said they are they’d come with age restrictions like cigarettes and alcohol ……🤯
He also said all their friends have phones so they’re going to see it anyway. He thought I was being rediculous when I asked if he’d give them cocaine if all their friends were already using it.
The tragedy is he’d never watch this if I sent it to him because he doesn’t watch anything on his phone and doesn’t have ANY social media accounts.
Great stuff to get out there guys. Jonathan rocks 👊😃
If I’m not wrong, Noel Gallagher said that he would most likely have spent his entire free time smoking weed and watching music videos if smartphones had been around when he was a teen. That sort of puts into perspective the destructive potential of those devices v
One easy solution, enforce the rule of no phones in the classroom,
That's a good start, but it's only one of the 4 norms he listed at 36:00.
That rule exists in my state.
25:10 The nutritious parts of interactions, especially during face-to-face activities, are disputes. Such a profound idea. Thanks for the nutritious interaction in itself.
This was a great interview, very, very interesting and informative.
I'm a substitute teacher and these phones and devices are very destructive. I was a dairy farmer until 2019 when I had to change careers to beef cattle and substitute teaching. I noticed a huge change in 2013 and the attention span and the work ethic changed for the worse. They wanted instant money but didn't believe they needed to work for it. There is a shortage of teachers and substitutes because of change in culture of how we treat work and how we treat teachers/staff at the schools.
Facebook wasn't popular until I was 17 in 2007, I avoided smartphones all through university, and now I have one I use for texting, social media, music, and such. I couldn't imagine dropping into the world as a kid now! Christ my 5 year old niece is an ipad addict with sever emotional issues oh my.
This discussion isn't quite right. The real issue is genetic attractiveness/unattractiveness being amplified. Hot guys/girls don't get addicted to video games/kill themselves at lower rates. The real issue is maintaining genetics. Social media is a complex pyramid of value. I would argue memes/instagram reels reflect the human experience incredibly well, and make uniquely depressed people feel seen/reflected. The logistical instagram channels involving physics/farming/engineering/mentorship/psychology are extremely valuable.
Thank you. Important topics.
Thank you!!!
EXCELLENT INTERVIEW!
Totally agree on all points! Great UnHerd as usual! Great Flo!
The idea of 'innocent childhood' was invented by the Victorians.
For most of history, in most cultures, children have faced all the drama of life, and death ...
And somehow survived.
What a brilliant interview. So disturbing...but should be mandatory information for every parent of young children to be aware of. Somehow we need to decide, it's time to protect our kids again. We need to give parents back the ability to raise their own kids. We are in such dystopian times. Our parents have had their ability to raise their kids stolen from them by social media 😢
What really gets me is the addict in the tech users is "we can't LIVE without our phones!!!" But really what did people do to survive over 30 years ago.... before cell phones were smart phones.
Better times, my friend, better times...
100% correct.
Loved this interview. So many profound and thought-provoking ideas, and more books to add to my reading list. The last bit is particularly fascinating - I'm the only person I know who's significantly reducing "smartphone" dependency, and it's not easy! You do end up being left out of some events, though having said that I've been out at in-person events every night this week except Monday.
Ultimately worth the sacrifice -- fight that good fight!
What a great discussion.
Merci beaucoup pour votre vidéo.
The failure of school systems around the world to prohibit cell phones on school grounds is an atrocious crime of omission. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence could foretell that kids having unfettered cell phone (i.e. internet) exposure would spell disaster. That school officials lacked the foresight and moral imagination to get ahead of this problem shows that as educators, they are not fit for purpose. Indefensible!
Very good episode. Great presenter too.
Brilliant and collaborative discussion.
Very important work. Thank you 😊
Such an excellent interview!
Isn't "mental health" a phrase invented for nefarious purposes just like "gender identity"? I think so, and have since I was a teenager in the 80s. The first time I heard the term "mental health" -- and noticed that * suddenly * it was everywhere after never hearing it before -- I knew it was propaganda though I wouldn't have been able to articulate that at the time and I still can't put it into words to make it plain for others to understand, but I think all events of the past 30 years prove me right.
Xlnt commentary Flo = 16:45 - 17:25 - so much of the problem begins right there. I've been saying for many years now =- "kids cannot truly be kids anymore" -- and in recent years what you say here may be the start of future problems for them.
"The jobs that women could do."
You mean the jobs women were ALLOWED to do. Those would be secretary, nurse, teacher. List over.
What about the last four years, surely the biggest elephant in the room here- and the impact of the untested medical experiment on these children? Thank you for this but surely this needs to be considered here right now.
29:00 the host : "social media is worse than video games because video games at least you are playing the same game and sharing the experience whereas social media is completely tailored to you"
But just like social media forms very small bubbles around niche interests, the same is also true of video games. boys still form bubbles around niche games.
I'm twenty. Out of all social media, TH-cam is the only one that I have used consistently over the years. Everything else I have had very minimal if any experience with. I count myself lucky. Avoided video games, too. Looks like I haven't missed out on much.
Congratulations, keep it up 💯
Brilliant interviewer, wonderful guest, thank you!
My parents are in their 70s and are Boomers.
My childhood and their current lives are dominated by television. Discuss.
Women attend uni more, but achieve less because they choose not STEM. English majors. Women are also very coddled through until marriage by their keepers (daddy, mommy and government).
Oh but msm is fine. It doesn't dumb people down.:):)
I agree with everything he says - but in addition, I think part of the problem is the medical / psychology industry itself. When we say that teenagers are depressed more than ever - are they really? Or are they just REPORTING depression in larger numbers? I think that EVERY generation has depressed teenagers - but this generation also has an overly active psychology industry that is constantly in their face asking "Are you depressed? Are you depressed? Tell me how you feel, etc" and this is skewing the numbers...
Maybe something to that.... I know that so many of them claiming being "bisexual" is not so -- that is more like their first venture into playing politics.
When I was a kid, it was Ozzy records killing childhood. The old folks always got something to panic about. AND AND AND I had a big skin bin under my bed. Sure, I could talk to girls, but all they'd say is, "OMG, ya so kweeeah!"
Forward minded Dr. Jonathan Haidt, excellent as always. Love from Greece
I pop onto Reddit occasionally. There’s a lot of discussion of once AI is advanced, we’ll be able to immerse ourselves in virtual reality all the time. Just purely virtual stimulation.
A lot of people seem to want to get into that don’t they. Odd to me but it’s gonna drive more and more people away from talkative social society.
Giving your child a smartphone isnt giving them access to the world, its giving the world access to your child.
true.
Go outside and do what? Watch people stare at their phones while I sit there alone trying to enjoy nature among the car sounds? We need more real alternatives.
In a casual public situation I make a point of staying off the phone to leave room for a chance in-person conversation. Be available, learn how to shoot the breeze.
I can recommend growing vegetables outside. Touch the soil and plants with your hands, smell the fresh air and feel the wind and the sun. Create and care for life.
@@ximono gotta have land to do that
@@user-zr1dr7nz8e Or pots.
@@user-zr1dr7nz8enope just a pot.
I took the PARENT BY EXAMPLE approach with my kid born in 2008 because kids never do to what caregivers say BUT they copy what they SEE.
I gave my kid a dumb phone in 1st grade and let him practice being self-sufficient &self-governing in everyday common situations.
We played Xbox together 1st time when he was in Kindergarten. But I never outsourced my parenthood opportunities by teaching him all the basic activity skills that I learned as a child(climbing, biking, skating, snake boarding, swimming, tennis, calisthenics, hacky sacking, etc ) & encouraged him to befriend kids who he noticed played with stuff that made him curious.
I did NOT overly PROTECT him from random NOT AGE APPROPRIATE everyday events that the world threw at us. But used those experiences as learning tools for him to understand the world & for us to form BONDs based on TRUST & mutual respect.
The outcome so far seems to be noticed by everyone who meets us together. I’m always asked “how come your teenager is so close to you?” Normally at this age they stop talking with their parents.
I tell everyone that I did not take a typical approach to parenting so my outcome is not typical I guess too.
My kid is a good student, he loves to read, self taught guitar player, and is complimented for having good manners when mingling at family events.
We need LESS techno driven, command & control, over protective supervision that suffocates a child’s opportunities to learn & build on their mistakes….NOT MORE rules & limitations.
This is on the parents.
Written like a non parent.:)
@@evad7933 Or interpreted by a lazy and not very competent one. Of course, there's only so much we can do (and peers often have more influence than parents) but that is still obviously a lot more than you realize/
@@a_lucientes Tut tut. A long time ago, before I had children of my own, I used to think like you.
When you live in a society, nothing is ever on just one group of people.
@@katieandnick4113 Education Let us take smartphones out of consideration for a moment. Education Departments were keen, about 15 years ago in my country, to roll out laptops for secondary schools so as not to 'lag behind in technology'. This then placed great pressure on parents at home who were invariably outpointed by their tech savvy offspring who could counter every move made. I recall once watching some Scottish mid adolescent in a TH-cam video dedicated to getting around parent internet blocks.
Truth.
Parents must take responsibility for raising and caring for the mental and physical health of their children. And part of taking care of them is rationing access to cell phones and computers and monitoring the content they access. Children and young people under 18 years of age should not have access to cell phones or computers except to carry out their homework and under the strict supervision of their parents. Likewise, access to TV and music.
This whole issue comes down to the responsibility of the parents! 🤔🧐
Met a high school teacher at a small beach in NH in the late winter with the ice breaking up on the lake. He asked me if I had kids. His young son was playing with the broken ice and exploring....he commented how damaging the phones have become.
And then his son fell through broken ice into the freezing water and was swept away. :)
What's up with the editing of this interview? very strange
Thanks
Perhaps the presenter can enlighten us as to what is 'normative' in sexual tastes and what is not 'kinky' - as if tastes can be conveniently placed int o two categories.:) No doubt she has tapped into reliable research, even though it does not exist.:)
he is so great...
I was born in 2000. My teenage years were definitely impacted by smartphones but at least I got to enjoy a pretty normal, offline childhood. It’s sobering to realise that I’m probably in one of the last generations that got to have that.