Jonathan Haidt: Social psychologist, NYU Stern professor, and author of The Anxious Generation and The Coddling of the American Mind.
What this episode covers
Jonathan Haidt returns to discuss how the period 2010-2015 rewired childhood, with smartphones, front-facing cameras, high-speed data, and Instagram replacing unsupervised play. He presents federal data showing major depressive episodes among teen girls roughly tripled, arguing COVID was only a blip compared to the larger trend. Haidt lays out four norms to reverse the damage: no smartphone before high school, no social media until 16, phone-free schools, and more childhood independence. The conversation widens into TikTok as a national-security threat, bots and foreign manipulation of democracy, structural stupidity in universities and at Google (Gemini), and the loss of institutional trust. Haidt closes optimistically, predicting 2024 will be a tipping point for protecting kids online.
The guest's own work
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
Jonathan Haidt
“that's why you wrote this the anxious generation how the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness”— Jonathan Haidt
The Coddling of the American Mind
Jonathan Haidt
“my book The coddling of the American mind had just come out and back then people were beginning to sense”— Jonathan Haidt
The Righteous Mind
Jonathan Haidt
“some of the content from my book The Righteous Mind and it's now it evolved it's now 6 30 minute modules”— Jonathan Haidt
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
The Cancelling of the American Mind
Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott
“Greg lukanov and Ricky schlot their new book The cancelling of the American mind is about”— Jonathan Haidt
Free-Range Kids
Lenore Skenazy
“I'm a big fan of Lenor ski the woman who wrote Freer range kids she and I co-founded an organization called let grow”— Jonathan Haidt
The Flight 93 Election
Michael Anton
“there was an essay what's It by Michael Anton I think called the flight 93 election”— Jonathan Haidt
Netflix
Netflix
“I asked my undergrads at NYU I said how many of you use Netflix almost everybody says yes how many of you wish Netflix was never invented nobody”— Jonathan Haidt
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Samsung
“Samsung's new Galaxy s24 Ultra has a bunch of pretty fantastic AI features one of them being real-time translation”— Joe Rogan
Motorola StarTAC
Motorola
“when I moved to Los Angeles in 1994 I bought a Motorola star Tack and I was like look at me I got a phone”— Joe Rogan
Big reveals from this episode
- Federal data shows major depressive episodes in teen girls rose from about 12% (2005-2010) to nearly 30%, with boys up to about 12%.
- COVID was only a tiny blip compared to the gigantic ongoing rise in teen depression that began around 2012.
- Haidt proposes four norms: no smartphone before high school, no social media until 16, phone-free schools, and more real-world independence.
- Academic achievement reversed after 50 years of improvement, with kids measurably 'stupider' since 2012 due to phones in schools.
- Haidt distinguishes the TikTok mental-health issue from the national-security issue, supporting forced divestiture from ByteDance rather than a ban.
- Haidt calls Google's Gemini rollout a case of 'structural stupidity' that produced racially distorted images like black Nazis.
- Haidt predicts 2024 will be for the digital environment what 1989 was for Soviet communism, a rapid tipping point.
Worth remembering
- Gallup finds teens spend about 5 hours a day on social media and around 9 hours total on screens outside school.
- Haidt argues social media only became truly harmful after 2009-2010 with the like and retweet buttons making it viral.
- Joe Rogan cites an FBI estimate that roughly 80% of Twitter accounts may be bots.
- Frito-Lay engineered the exact tensile strength a chip should have before snapping to maximize its addictive crunch.
- Haidt's metaphor: post-2010 social media was like changing the atmosphere from 20% to 80% oxygen so everything goes up in flames.
- Soviet 'active measures' since the 1950s aimed to divide Americans, a tradition Haidt says Putin continues cheaply via social media.
- Top schools draw more students from the top 1% of incomes than from the bottom 60%, concentrating activism at Ivy League campuses.
- Britain has mandated phone-free schools, matching one of Haidt's four norms.
- Joe Rogan recalls buying a Motorola StarTAC in 1994 and having a car-connected satellite phone in 1989 as a comedy-gig advantage.