Jonathan Haidt: How Social Media Has Fragmented Everything and Made It Harder to Run and Staff Orgs
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Present Failings and Ways Forward: Private Sector, Public Sector. 19th annual conference of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University.
something that hit me the other day was how it has become a form of therapy for people to use social media video recordings to vent out feelings, frustrations, and unfiltered observations that in the past were typically only meant to be discussed in confidence with a close friend, therapist or independently through journaling. It is interesting because these feelings are obviously valid either way, but talking about them more privately gives us a chance to work through them and reflect more on what our own part is in those feelings before submitting to them. But - when you take those same unfiltered hightened emotional states and blast them on social media, you as well as everyone who consumes that media can get those feelings validated by others without the deeper introspection required to work through them in a healthy way. I think especially short form video apps like tik tok have made this phenomenon spread like wildfire. It simply isn't normal for so much unfiltered emotional judgement to be broadcasted and validated at such a high volume, and we are seeing the impact of this with growing fragility and an increased sense of victimization. When you can get your every emotion validated by looking at your phone, theres very little reason to question your feelings or perspectives.
Cry harder lawmaker
Well stated analysis!
Very much agree. Somewhat related but have you noticed how people use videos as a safety blanket? Have a tough conversation with a Mellinial or Gen Z and they often immediately switch on a video to self sooth. Scary.
...and... the collective "We" become resentful of reality, objectivity, truth.
The most important thing to remember about social media is that the people who's voice was removed were the ones who were right. The remainder are the feminine herd, who use approval/disapproval to go through the world, rather than true/false.
Dr. Haidt is among my very favorite public intellectuals. Thank you for posting this video and thanks to him for his good work.
I agree with Jonathan. For a big percentage of the population, maybe over 50%, social media is a total waste of time at its best and desastrous at its worst. Most people are ordinary, intimate, low profile. They don't wish their lives to be shown to a wide public. Now they are used to doing it, and this brings so many negative side effects, like stress, difficulties in focusing on a book or a conversation, lack of time for mind resting, walks, even sleep. I'm not on social media and yet, I catch myself spending way too much time on my smartphone: useless news, useless videos, even useless overlooking of trip photos. Imagine having to spend an extra time to your social media, AND imagine being a kid or teenager on top. Recipe for disaster!
TH-cam is social media.
Your not exaggerating. It’s the pits
@theonetrueking2685 I joined during the pandemic insanity, with a pseudonym, to save videos. But I agree, after the first year when I benefited somewhat, I have mostly wasted time. I never joined Facebook, etc. I don't understand why anyone did. Sure made some people rich.
This may sound weird, but go to a mall. I'm a retail manager, everyone in the industry says physical stores are failing because of online shopping, convenience and price; they are wrong. Those things are a function but they are not the root cause, social anxiety among kids is. That is carried onto the parents, when your kids don't want to go you take them out less often and there is a psychological effect to seeing other people. You can blame the pandemic but before that this was already happening. It also contributes to the belief in increased racism and oppression. When you had to go out regularly in order to shop, and you saw groups of teenagers of all races and cultures hanging out you were at least subconsciously exposed to a cooperative world. Now when you see none of that it's much easier to believe that division is prevalent. Parents also have a strong negative psychological reaction to their kids being home all the time, separate from fussing with your kids most people don't understand why they don't go out and do things like we did. Most major problems are not simple black-and-white, they have lots of causes, but I think the research here on the impact is only scratching the surface.
I agree about the social anxiety in teens. That being said though, depending on where you are, it can also be anxiety about physical safety. Muggings, assaults, lack of metal detectors, etc can also be a factor for some of us older people - which in turn might compound the fear in teens, unfortunately
@@lisaschooler9992the irony is that anxiety about those things are disproportionate to the actual risks, the actual incidence of those crimes massively decreased over the years even while anxiety and fear of them increased.
Grew up in the 90s, had an overbearing grandma that would scold to beat us or even kill us if we ever stepped out of the main road, she would worry every trip we took when we got our bikes, and beyond that again reminded to not visit any other sideroads or downtown repeatedly. Moved to the big city during highschool where some people of different ethnicities would bring weapons at school (switchblade) and ask for "protection tax", mugging but under guise of " well keep you safe if continue to pay us or we stab.. ". School director was a woman, P.E was a woman, only the Arts/Painting and CHistory were male teachers. Not Ca/US, developing EU country.
Thanks for that. Very thought provoking.
This is really true. We need more 'third places', I very much agree with this.
This video was posted well before the Bud Light Fiasco ... lol ... It's almost like Jonathan Haidt saw it coming ... I recommend all of his books. The Coddling of the American Mind stands out to me above the others. The Audiobook with Jonathan Narrating his and Greg's work is what I would suggest.
"Walking on eggshells?" People are vastly more vicious to one another now than was ever socially acceptable before. Presidents, mass media, etc., never conducted themselves like they do now. During the pandemic, they shamed people who lost their businesses and called them grandma killers. They debated whether an unvaccinated person should get a hospital bed if they get sick, and it sounded reasonable to most people to say they should go to the back of the line. Plus, you can broadcast this all over the world instantly, and create that infamous permanent record. Maybe that's the reason for fragility?
I will read any book Haidt writes
Even erotic fan fiction???
@@davidaragon2399 even that
If social media didn't cause such harm, what would he get rich writing about?
Social media is no longer "social"...it's hypnotical. The idea now is to grab people's attention at any costs, mostly for likes and monetization. I believe everyone needs a break from it. The workbook called 30 Days Without Social Media by Harper Daniels goes great with Jonathan's book. I went a couple months while not using it and it was like a bath for my brain...just felt so clean afterwards, and now i cringe when I look at what people post and look at.
Look, in 1970, a kid could get a minimum wage job and save up enough money over the summer to pay for a year of state college. And three roommates could get minimum wage jobs and rent an apartment ANYWHERE --- San Fran, Manhattan . . . Those were different people. Who created the world where that became impossible?
Exactly! As a young dancer, 20 years old, I moved to NYC in 1980. Lived on W57th between 9th and 10th in a nice apt with three roommates. I worked lunch at a local restaurant, paid for my two or three dance classes a day, bought airline tickets to visit family and friends 3!or 4 times a year. I went out to eat, always had food, money for clothes and dance wear with a few hundred dollars in the bank.
@@LoriVFenske I am so happy you got to do that! That was living.
@@l.w.paradis2108 thank you! yes it was!
"Who created the world where that became impossible?"
Apparently it was the people who grew up in a world where that was possible.
@phaedrussmith1949 A VERY SMALL segment of that world --- although actually, Ronald Reagan and Bush I are from an earlier generation.
(Did you ever look up to Bill Gates, btw? I always saw through him and others like him.)
oh my gosh, this guy is saying so many things that I have been thinking but didn't hear hear anybody else say it
I have been a Jonathan Haidt fan for two decades and this is precisely why I will always be.
This should be required for all people to watch.
When will the social media companies be held responsible
One of the best, of many, by Jonathan.
I'm a manager in a large food pantry near Austin, TX. We have a lot of volunteers of ages. Frequently, I'll walk into the break room and find six teens staring at their phones. I'll make some kind of quip about nice to see so many people having conversations.....silence.
The worst part is that all these people that Haidt is talking about think that their lives, phones, and social media are benign.
Ouch! You would be reported to higher administration for that quip if you worked for a university.
Social media has lead to a lot of other social problems. Look at the low marriage rates for the US. Young people have become so fearful and risk averse that they never make the most important decision of their lives.
Great talk, but next time have a mic that is working closer to the speaker.
Really good talk. Really bad audio quality :(
This was very interesting.
Wow his talk is like a heavy Cruise Missle heading dead nuts on the bullseye. This is so awful and this same thoughts been brewing with me for many years. I have seen how a 12 year addiction to SM has significantly changed my wife. It disgusted me so that I swore years ago I would never use anything other than a long cast type, one way, SM and never EVER Instagram, FB , Instagram, etc. AND I DONT MISS IT ONE TONY BIT IN 3 plus years. Meanwhile my wife continues to become more and more addicted. It’s a godawful product. It wrecks people, as I have witnessed intimately unfortunately. Don’t let this happen to you or your family, as it is subtle but steadily covert.
Sooner or later some guy will slide into her DMs (direct msg) and that dopamine fix will get transferred to him and your family will be over. Seen it a thousand times. Get monitoring software on her phone NOW, so that you will know when to pull the plug. Get your ducks in a row. This is not something to be taken lightly.
Ok. Now What❓
Thank you Jonathan Haidt for leading the charge on this issue. Societal issues empirically exposed by academia, journalism and citizens at large, are all vitally necessary to our survival.
✴️That's Step 1.
Step 2: Solutions through effective legislation to reign in the forces powering the problems.
For better or worse, solutions to save us from potentially bad outcomes fall on the Legislative and Judicial Branches of Government. Solutions go there to die when the perpetrators of these issues are allowed to buy influence.
Anti+Trust & Monopoly laws are unenforced or weakened by Congress & The Senate. The FCC legislated to be ineffectual since Reagan. So Facebook buys Instagram, Bill Gates monopolizes, FOX news and MSNBC set fire to the political landscape framing the discourse in this country through bias, misinformation and willful omission of certain facts.
To quote the late great Micheal Brookes " We live in a Cycle of Fury"."
We see the dangers. See the proof. Raise a fury. Our leaders cash their bribery checks. No change for the Better.
So 60% of the country's citizens go back to our lives by working 3 jobs to survive, hope for the best. Leaving us with a disenchanted, uninvolved electorate thus perpetuating the continued corruption of our leadership.
We can get furious all day long
Without Political change, we are stuck in it's cycle.
People made fortunes investing in social media stocks. Capitalism . . .
I never joined Facebook, etc. This is my first account of any nature, and joined during the insane lockdown mainly to save videos.
Very interesting!
Audio issues?
I've been saying this about Babel for years!
I wonder which is the chicken and which is the egg: the rise of social media or the propensity to overprotect our kids? They definitely affect each other. I also applaud Dr Haidt for identifying “affective polarization.” I’m stealing that.
And the reality is working mom's are causing this void in our children both boys and girls in the most development time of their growth which is infant to. 5 years old and beyond really kids feel more alone abandoned and pushed on to strangers and have one to deal with other people's kids on a. Ridiculous level and we're gonna pretend that has nothing to do with it. I used to be a daycare teacher. I had the two-year-old room and those kids stayed from 6:30 AM to 6 PM. On top of babysitters in the evenings in weekends. I mean kids aren't being raised by either parent. It's like you're just a guest that overnight guest in your own home as a kid especially during development time and then we wonder why these kids are. Emotionallthe stable and confused.
Can't generalize like this and just blame women.
How come doing harm creates massive fortunes, that put the kings of England to shame? And, if harm wasn't created, what would Haidt write about?
Jonathan Haidt, my girl totally hates you, whereas I just love.
Maybe it's because of that "walking on eggshells" skit you did: I'm rather certain I'm dealing with a hard libertarian, of the emotionally unstable persuasion, here. Not quite of Gen Z, but OMG would she have all of the problems.
Look, in 1970, a kid could get a minimum wage job and save up enough money over the summer to pay for a year of state college. And three roommates could get minimum wage jobs and rent an apartment ANYWHERE --- San Fran, Manhattan, anywhere . . . Those were different people. Who created the world where that became impossible? That's the fragile world, all right, and the kids didn't do this to themselves.
As a hardcore libertarian, I rather doubt that's what your gf is. I personally LOVE Haidt, and all the other libertarians I know do as well. She's probably just your run-of-the-mill, garden variety prog-tard.
I wish Fox News wasn't the default media example. Have you seen MSNBC? They are an order of magnitude worse, especially on topics like race, gender, and political categorization.
The argument over which is worse won't go anywhere. Let's just admit that both channels are firehoses of partisan propaganda.
@@beyondaboundary6034 At least Fox is against racism. MSNBC is practically nonstop Race Marxism, which is insanely divisive. As a Canadian looking south, I can tell you it is really obvious which is worse. The US Left has become excessively coherantist and insufficiently externalist epistemologically. As a result, it is about to get a smackdown in the 2022 midterm elections tomorrow night. Watch MSNBC spew racializing narratives all night, while Fox addresses the issues that are driving the red wave. If you don't see how MSNBC's explanations seem logical but are in fact not based on what actually drives voting decisions, you're in an echo chamber and you need o change channels.
Really? With all due respect, we just don't see MSNBC as a problem in our house, do you have any examples? Have a good day.
@@michaelweinman9051 have you seen anything by Joy Reid? They literally host the two most racist people on TV. Nobody on the right even comes close. If you've ever compared her to aTucker Carlson, and you don't see it, you're just not living in the real world. And don't try to twist this into a defense of Carlson. That would just be purile.
@@AndyWearsPants ok fair enough. Not sure about joy Reid....uh you may have a point.
just havn't seen a lot of her. Have a good day. Thanks for the note.
The good news is that Gen Z's anxieties are mostly self inflicted and can be reversed with changes of lifestyle (don't rely on social media for affirmation, join groups, help others, ...) and attitude (develop detachment).
Yes let's blame everything but ourselves.
Everything driven by money becomes corrupted.
You clearly missed the whole point of this.
Anything fixed gets dusty, everything easy gets cold, every fish spoils and stinks.
The process is more important that the end result. 0 to Infinity.
End result = 1-5-12 things then none. (no growth).
Yes and the ‘mental health problems’ ‘anxiety, paranoid and delusional personality disorders’ are caused by people being able to communicate to each other the reality that we are slaves
What I get from this is 4chan was founded in 2003 and it made democracy better, and it seemed like history was going to end, but then twitter ruined the internet with the retweet button 😸
The assumption is that our existential threats like food security and war are receding as we "progress" forward. What if it is a cycle, what if we find ourselves in continuous war or war spending, and food becomes scarce, 1984 style? These helicopter kids wont do well in this environment. Good times create weak people, weak people create bad times
So then. Capitalists, in pursuit of quick & easy bucks, by unleashing social media upon the vulnerable world are making it harder to staff and run the organizations that are pursuing those quick & easy bucks. Do I have this right?
You have that perfect.
Funny how they gloss over that. 😅
Biased Response Team? You're serious?
Google it. It's correct.
Bring on that Carrington Event 2.0 !! the global reset button.
That was a lot of generalizing. Not sure I buy it.
It's backed up by years of detailed research. Nobody cares whether you "buy it" or not.
It’s obviously true just not from this lens right? Anxiety is a good thing it is a survival mechanism and if massive amounts of the population are waking up to the fact that elite culture is pro-slavery then good. Maybe there will be a massive war and many good and bad people will themselves be killed.
Fine example of what was just discussed.
Boomer doesn't listen to the conversations our kids are having and just says "they are offended by a bad word"..
Gen Z is inventing and creating opportunities every day.
It's not their fault that Boomer doesn't acknowledge them.
"Institutions are colapsing" because Boomers are defunding them AFTER they benefited from them, themselves, when they were young..
Nonsense. 😅
Not boomers as a generation. Some probably.
Sorry your issue more with late stage capitalism being unable to fix any issues. Like climate change or basic health care. You guys need to stop holding on to a antiquated economic system.
So the answer to authoritarian far left racial, gender and cultural revolution, is far left economic revolution?
Ummm….no
@@honestjohn6418 so what makes it authoritarian. PS. Nothing more authoritarian than capitalist economics set aside feudalism maybe
Best get to work and invent a new system before the world dies😊
@AJ Strauss already been done just need boot lickers to get their shit together 😃
"late stage capitalism" is just a fuzzy pejorative. The use of terms like that solves no problems, and achieves nothing. How about you propose some specific solutions? Marxism has been tried in numerous and utterly different cultures, and has been disastrous in all cases.
You can tell that everything he fearmongers about is true because all extreme sports, and professional athletes are 46 years old....
and there aren't any young people on ski mountains or on mountain bikes..
BAWHAHAHAH NOOOOOT
😎