How the Modern World Makes Us Mentally Ill - Dr. Jonathan Haidt 

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When you're young you care what people think about you. When you're an adult you don't care what people think of you. When you're old, you realize almost no one was thinking of you at all

"don't wish for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one" - bruce lee

“People don’t know how to challenge themselves.” “Now our sponsors that shortens a book so you can finish it faster.”

the world did end in 2012

"The less you care the happier you'll be." -A wise man

My parents used to lock me and my brothers outside and tell us to go play and not come home until sun down. That was in the 80s and early 90s.

I’m so glad I didn’t get addicted to any of the social media. But I’m stuck with RU-vid.

“Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people that they don't like.” ― Will Rogers

Instead of focusing on loving ourselves, we're too busy focusing on pleasing and getting validation from strangers who wouldn't care if we die tomorrow. We want to be rich and famous instead of valuing the things that matter the most. We've become coddled to the point we're so insecure and narcissistic. We've become so addicted to our devices, that we miss out on so much. Future generations won't know what it's like to walk and play outside, ride a bike, play with toys, and be imaginative.

“You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.” ― David Foster Wallace

As an 18 years-old boy (gen Z), quitting social media was the best decision I've made

i truly hate how kids are growing up, it stems off of what their parents are teaching/not teaching and what they are learning from what they see on the internet. I'm 15 and i feel alienated because i don't think how my peers do. all my peers don't think they just follow blindly, it's scaring me i feel like i have no future.

Not just America, it's World wide 😔

Quit all social media. Best decision I ever made.

Are society is stuck in a bubble not listening to others with an other opinion, we are forming a new form of modern tribalism distancing our selfs from people who might disagree with us cause for some reason it’s hard for us to see ourselves as wrong and the other as correct , just because someone disagree with me doesn’t mean I should hate that person

Holy shit I was born in early 2002 and I feel like my generation is twisted discombobled science experiment. Formal human interaction is almost suprising and weird to many people my age . I'm guilty of it as well because I'm introverted by nature but it's crazy . I gotta start getting my social skills sharpened

You are the only one that cares about how you look and feel. Remember this and your life becomes so much easier.

Im gen z and i got to say this is so true for my generation they’re being raised to be weak and not to do things ourselves. We need to go out of our way to become better stronger people or our civilization will pay the price.

Lets not forget the fact that the school education system doesn't make things better.

I used to think that society had cheated me by making life hard and unfair. Now I understand that I cheated myself by letting society make life too easy.

you know, this actually reminds me of the Spartans from ancient Greece, and an old thing I heard about from them. the Spartans often trained the men from a very young age how to fight and made sure they would be very though. they would throw the baby away if they were deemed too weak to become a soldier, they would be to encouraging kids to bully each other to make them stronger. the Spartans would do everything to make the perfect soldier. but, if a spartan ever left Sparta, they would be like the kid who had overbearing parents finally getting a room separate room in college, self-destructive, not knowing how to do many things, and burning money like a candle. what I am saying is: Spartans could not live outside of Sparta, because they had been thought their entire life only how to fight, but not how to live. so, when they left this overbearing society, they then got the one thing this society never gave them: true freedom. with no idea what it brings, no idea how others thought, no idea other than how to fight. so, we did the same thing to our kids, but with school and smarts, we made sure the kids were only safe, but not if they were actually learning anything. so, then when these kids with nothing more than school smarts and knowing only how to get through a bureaucracy come to live for themselves, you end up with the same people: they only learned how to walk but not how to run. so then they have to learn how to sprint on their own, so they try and do it themselves but might still fail not because they didn't try, but because they never know what to do in the first place. I don't know why I decided to write this, but hey, if you get my point, then I think its all good: we need to let the kids learn by themselves without our guidance, and not with the internet ether, as the internet is just a classroom full of people trying to be teachers, who have very little clue on how to teach. we need to let them be in the world and see what's right, what's wrong, and everything in between for themselves and guide them through it when they have questions. the more force used to keep a system together, the more pressure will destroy it faster instead of helping it become better, it will chock it to death. so, that really all I think about it, and almost no will ready and I myself is the teacher trying in the classroom full of teacher's, take what you will from them and me, they might know something after all

"We believe human nature is good". Social Media: Let me prove to you how wrong you are...

I grew up with internet,smartphones, social media in middle school. I’m 19 now and it’s destroyed all of our mental healths. I’ve known at least 5 people I knew personally who committed suicide. This won’t improve either.

“Headphones on for the train ride, silence it tears through my bones, there’s a whole train car full of people, we all just stared at our phones, 5000 friends on my socials, but for some reason I still feel alone, I’ve lived here my whole damn life, but at the same time, well I’ve never been home”-Chillinit

Technology has largely advanced the world we live in, but it came with costs that we don't know how to deal with.

Deleted facebook more than 3 years ago and people sometimes think i'm an alien for doing it. Boy if they only knew how it changed my mental state for the better

This video summed up in a very eloquent yet easy to understand way my exact feelings on being a part of Gen Z. All my life I was told "you're not allowed to do X because it's too dangerous" or "you can't do that! We banned it because we thought it was yada yada yada" and then once I became an adult about 4 or 5 years ago I saw other Gen Z young adults suffering in academia and in the workplace and the only thing the older generations can say is "Why don't the kids these days understand how to do anything" without realizing how many important experiences were robbed from the youth by either neglectful parents who didn't care enough to facilitate the necessary experiences or by overprotective parents who deemed the experiences "too dangerous". The paradoxical irony we're seeing was always difficult for me to put into words but I thank you for sharing this in such an easy to understand format.

I have noticed all of these symptoms described in this video in new, Gen Z hires at my work and it is terrifying, especially since my line of work is dangerous and often fatal to people who know what they are doing, let alone a Gen Z kid who has never been around anything dangerous before. It takes constant babysitting, patience, and work just to get them to do anything, not being able to change a lightbulb is not an exaggeration of what ive seen in the workspace, ive actually seen that among Gen Z hires. Most of them give up within a week or two. It should be noted though, that those Gen Z kids who still receive proper parenting, and were given a proper childhood and were taught to use technology responsibly at a young age are absolutely brilliant. It seems that if you teach your kids to use technology and the internet like say, Einstein or Tesla would they can turn out to be amazing individuals! Teach your kids to use the internet for knowledge and learning, not the empty hollow things like Social media and Netflix. Social media is mind candy, learning new things and building knowledge online is the healthy square meal that your childs mind actually needs.

The right to fail has been replaced with the right to be offended.

as a 19 year old genz kid i see this so much to the point where im just want to go out and get hurt or take unnessary risk just so i can learn shit or know what its like to get hurt and feel pain because we was deprived that from childhood.

I was born in 2002 and most of my friends were very depressed during school. Now that were out and starting our lives things are getting better but I definitely wish I was born in the 80s you really can't escape the internet this day and age

I’m 28 and I’m proud to be a millennial who was the last generation to have to walk or ride a bike to a friends house to hangout. Great childhood. It sounds like a horror show for gen z.

It makes me veary sad when my partner reffers to what she saw on instagram as "everyone is doing something now" as if the social media are a realistic reflection of what ordinary people are actually doing.

This is very interesting and important that we discuss this. However I also think that mental health is extremely unreported (especially among Baby boomers and Gen X). I think that childhood abuse and trauma is much MUCH more common than we think it is today. After WW2, veterans return to their families. Some of those veterans are traumatized, waking up with nightmares, or emotional flashbacks in their day to day lives. Some of them resort to alcohol as a way to cope. Others resort to hitting their wives or children. Some of those who used alcohol to cope lose control and also hit their wives or children. Some of those children are traumatized by their experience, and when they grow old (Baby Boomer) and raise their own families, none of that trauma has been properly dealt with. So some of them also resort to alcohol, beatings, or the civil rights movement of the 60's and the hippie movement to cope with their emotions. Some of those hippie communes were full of orgies that even children participated in. Those children (Gen X) are also traumatized by their father's drunkenness, beatings, sexual abuse, etc. They perpetuate this trauma forward onto their families. By the time the 90s role around, we have a surge of single parent homes, drug addiction, violence, and abuse. Some of that is lingering effects from the policies enacted in the 60's. In the 90s, trauma research was still extremely new and unknown to the public. People didn't believe that hitting children was wrong. Much less that sexual abuse was wrong. Now we get to the millenials, which happens to coincide with more publicity around mental health. We see more millennial's reporting problems with trauma, anxiety, ptsd, cptsd, depression, etc. Some of these problems stem from trauma (but it is unclear how many). Mental health is embraced by millenials, but still extremely taboo among gen X and boomers. Reason it is still taboo is because these people grew up in a world where trauma or mental health did not exist. So they did what they could to cope, even if it was destructive. They've been doing this for so many years, it's hard for them to admit that those coping mechanisms were wrong, much less destructive to those around them. So they refuse to report mental health problems more often. If we look at the crisis in USA today - the health crisis, obesity crisis, diabetes crisis - all of these health problems are significantly correlated with adverse childhood experiences ie trauma. Impulse control is emotional dysregulation in disguise. All of the recent civil rights movements of the past 15 years is just a retelling of the 60's civil rights movements. Case in point - my brother is an alcoholic who has beaten his kids and his wife. He learned that from our dad, who was an alcoholic and beat us as kids and our mom. My dad learned that behavior from his dad, who was an alcoholic and beat him. My grandfather lived through the Nazi occupation of WW2 in Poland. Yes this is anecdotal, but I think that this kind of inter-generational trauma is MUCH more common than we think it is today.

Real interesting. I once read a Reddit thread about teachers who’ve been teaching for over 30 years and what differences they saw in the different decades of kids. Back in the 80s/90s, kids were generally more tougher, resilient and learnt how to fend for themselves, the parents weren’t involved much. 2010 kids were a lot lot nicer to each other, but were very overprotected with helicopter moms. A college professor even shared a story about how one of his students moms phoned him to demand why he wasn’t doing well and to force him to do better ... at college ... when the students are adults

10:08 basically it says: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Social media being harder on girls, this is so true. It has affected my relationships in the past and so does Walt Disney! Females think some knight in shining armour will sweep them off their feet and the rest of their lives will be love and romance. RELATIONSHIPS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!!!! Relationships are a hard dirty full time jobs. They have great times and hardships. Social media creates the same problem where people’s lives look perfect but behind closed doors those people fought and bled for what they have just like you and me and sometimes social media is just a curtain to hide the uglyness of ones life.

"A boy will never become a man until he gets some bruises first"

I'm glad I have a smartphone, but I am eternally grateful I didn't grow up with one

Parents who wonder where the younger generation is going should remember where it cane from, and who is raising it 🖖

The road to hell is paved with good intentions 🤔

The inventors of the internet actually DID think this all out, and that is why the 90s internet was structured in the way it was.... BUT... they say FB messed that ALLL up.

One word: Stoicism.

when i see stuff like this i get so sad because out culture is so empty

1:55 - "There is a lot of research about how boys' and girls' social lives are different." Bold of them to assume I had one.

Schools and covid are here to encourage more of this dysfunction

To quote Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park in regards to the creators of social media. “They were so preoccupied with if they could, they never stopped to think if they should”. I was born in “81”, I remember not having the internet. I watched the decline start with reality tv and then the takeover of social media. I admit I was blinded by it at first. MySpace seemed amazing and then Facebook. Then I started seeing the decline. The change in the kids I met. The change in the people around me. The way people treated one another. I used to feel connected to the people around me. Not so much anymore.

The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

Quitting all social media was one of the best things I've ever done.

What’s terrifying is that many children within gen z are highly intelligent. They knew all this was bullshit, they tried telling people while it was happening. When language is developed to articulate a situation then people can make sense of it.

Honestly, I've interviewed my own friends who have been suicidal, and it's not online social platforms that are the problem to mental health. The common theme is childhood trauma and parenting (or lack of it). Social media just added gas to the fire. We need education in mental health

As a college student, I’m always frustrated about how my 18-25 year old peers are always like: Are we allowed to do that? And: I need to ask my parents if that’s ok, or My mom is tracking my steps so she knows if I’m walking my 8,000 steps a day. I grew up in the middle of no where where I was trusted to take care of myself by age 11. I’m always the person who fixes things and assembles stuff for my friends who are older than me and got way better grades and quality high school education. This makes so much sense to me. I dont want to blame technology or phones or social media for this, mostly the overprotective shell that these people grew up in.

the guy and talk are great, but this is not about "american" mind, rather "human"

I always called this the "Gohan effect" as this was the lesson DBZ taught me taking him from such a promising son of a warrior, only to lose his father in Cell saga and weakened by his mother to a shell of a man in Buu saga.

Tech entrepreneurs, supposedly the modern day messiahs based on their glorification, do not let their kids use smart phones, let alone social media. Why are you letting your kids use it then?

We need to work towards our purpose. There is too many distractions nowadays especially with technology.

The problem is we don't understand each other anymore. Because we forgot how to feel. We replaced feeling with (over)thinking. Just like you said, we learn best from experience.

Gut health is the most important function of mental health.

My late mother once said something about teenage girls that are the truest words ever spoken - "They love hard and they hate hard". Best, closest most intense friendships but then a falling out and the ugliness - bullying, social isolation etc. Social media has made it 1000 times worse.

Society is going in a wrong direction

"Suicide is Gen Z's second-leading cause of death" "The suicide rate among people aged 10 to 24 increased 56% between 2007 and 2017" We need to do something, people :'(

The cycle continues... tough times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create tough times... the tough times are coming, but at least the strong men will rise out of it.

So modernity is killing us, writers had been telling this since 1920s it's just the continuation of decadence worsening. Every decade is worse than the previous.

Let's blame everybody and everything else but the parents. lesson one: never ever compare yourself to anyone else. 2. keep your kids away from social media.

I'm 33 and I haven't had a cell for 9 years, good riddance.

I'm from Gen Z. Could've been worse, but one big mistake my parents made was to cave in when I was crying about not wanting to do something, like calling for an appointment or shit, things you need to let the kids do. As a result I had so little independence when other kids were already doing things I could only dream of being able to do alone. Now I force myself outside of my comfort zone, talking to people, making appointments, eating food I didn't like before, playing outside (more or less lol). It's been one of the greatest things for my development. Unfortunately I had to realize how incompetent my parents actually are at many things, and it was a sobering realization those couple years ago. It shaped an introverted, daydreaming, harmony- & companionship-appreciating Feeler-kid like me into a somewhat rugged individualist who had to become self-sufficient in mind and physical presence despite my nature not really being like that. At least it lead me into the path of seeking my best physical and mental health, and this growth mindset helped a lot in my personal development overall

Me personally living in London for the last 35 years have seen so much change and has affected me mentally because of change, the modern day people have no clue just mobile phones must have the newest motor flash homes but yet no soul. Go to the train station years ago people would acknowledge each other, but now a days saying good morning or just a friendly hello your are looked as if your crazy or wired, to ignore other people and being polite is the worng think to now a days so to me I feel trapped because of being polite and approachable. to me the modern day life is ok if your soul less or fearless.

2010 is around the time i started to feel disconnected and 2013 is when it started to become a big problem. I didnt understand it at the time, but i dont think its a coincidence that this is when social media started to boom.

We are an evolved species ? Really? What is the evidence ?

He's not actually referring to the Internet, but rather to social media.

True story: I met two young ladies with a bachelor’s degree that aren’t able to open a tin can.

Women and girls arent "more sensitive to social comparison", they are held to a specific societal standard which puts a lot of pressure on them. They are judged more often than young men and boys because of this, and are deemed "sensitive".

Don’t. Give. Your. Kids. Social. Media!

You know when social media platforms started to come out??

Yikes. Why was there no trigger warning? (Insert Millennial Joke) (Tip: It's a joke)

Video games do make you depressed because none of the in-game achievements translate in real life.

6:27 Maybe it's just me, but I hear this opinion expressed more often, that it's safer than it's ever been. Really? I'm calling bs or misinformation on this source. For those of us who are over 50, how many school shootings can we recall during the 60s, 70s, 80s and into the 90s? Just dig up some archived newsreels and you can see the difference...and no, it's not for the better. Ask a senior correspondant news anchor their opinion. You mean to tell me gun-related crime hasn't increased over the last 30 years? C'mon...it's becoming a daily event in most urban centres. Compare and contrast music lyrics or even movie dialogue from back then. If everything has remained the same, then why does the current slogan exist, Make America Great Again (even though it's not just America). Otherwise it would be more along the lines of Keep On Keepin' On.

Well that was depressingly spot on. Pretty much everyone I know including myself is or has been severely depressed and has horrible parents who either coddled and helicoptered them, or abused and neglected them or a sick combination of both. The pandemic has made it all worse too. And the worst part is we get blamed for it all.

If you're getting bullied on social media how about just delete the app?

"it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society "

This could explain why my parents take away my devices when Im upset... I use to think they were taking my happiness away from me but during those days I get better sleep, I had less anxiety, I was more social, I felt more happy, and I was more active in school. When I learnt this I started restricting social media more

No one has stopped and really thought about it, even you in this video completely miss the failure. The most socially awkward among us, the least socially acceptable among us, the most socially bizarre among us came up with these ideas that define how we socially interact, the rules by which we are excluded from that interaction, and which now destroy us socially. Are we really surprised? The Geeks! The computer guys! The ones who would rather have something they can be the puppetmaster of (coding) than to talk to a human being face to face, over whom they have no control and no clue how to interact with, who is unpredictable to them and beyond their manipulation. Is there ANY surprise that things have gone wrong when everyone else submits to their hegemony?

Young people are conditioned to value "better vs. worse" much more than "good vs. bad". It's not a good thing to believe that "being at least not as bad as X" is a good thing, but makes you *feel* good...

I used to walk the streets on my own at age 8. I would just venture the entire suburb, and find streets I never knew existed, and then find my own way home at night. As an adult, I was able to locate houses where my friends lived, even though I didn't have a map and was given just a mere address, and I am able to find my way home in a new city after the bus drops me off in an unfamiliar place. I just look and walk and let the instincts guide me. I believe this has a lot to do with those early years of exploring suburbs and understanding the patterns of different locations.

Recommended reading: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshanna Zuboff.

That's why you abolish social media, and as a result you get the chance to get your life together instantly.

We are also the first generation to constantly have almost all of the knowledge in the world at out fingertips and we learn about all of the bad going on in the world the second we get access to a phone with a news feed

As the only male elementary teacher (5th grade) I asked my students one day if they had ever climbed a tree and to my surprise no one said yes. The perfect climbing tree was close so I said we are going to climb a tree today. It was beautiful seeing the students lift the physically challenged girl onto the lower branch from her wheelchair without my suggestion. Everyone was having a blast - I was the coolest teacher because no one - even their parents wouldn't let them climb a tree. It was a great day until a student fell and broke his arm. The school nurse and I splinted the student's arm. The next day, I had the student show his X-rays to the class and we had a great anatomy lecture. Shortly thereafter, I lost my job for being a "reckless and irresponsible" teacher, but I know my students will cherish that day forever. This was in 2010. Life's short - let kids climb trees and let kids build tree forts by themselves.

My childhood was filled with super soakers, kickball, water balloons, dlip and slides, fun houses, airsoft guns, climbing trees and the list goes on. Man I miss those days..

2000s: “millennials suck because they had access to computers” 2020s: “gen z sucks because they have social media” -you didnt show any data for the suicide rates (only a drawing of an increasing graph) -other than that it was cool but i disagree

My son who was born in 92 and was in the Navy at the age of around 20 met another guy There who literally could not or did not even know how to put air in a car tire.I’m glad I grew up in the 70s

How could someone not believe in heaven when you grew up in hell😢

17 year old here, I agree so much with the points made in this video, my generation is starting to become more and more like a hive mind slave fest, I've seen it myself. Me and my generation have to do something about the current situation or this could go really badly.

It's all about the ego, the majority are living unconsciously. Introduce them to nihilism, existentialism, buddhism, stoicism, and art. Modern life sucks the soul of man and turns them into zombies.

I have actually dealt with a lot more male bullying on social media... and a lot more in person female bullying

The reason for depression in this age is this; ordinary people of this age don't have the struggle to survive to the extent that they do not have any fear that threatens their existence...An easy life taken for granted and simply put, lack of triggers to shoot the bullets. Any other explanation simply sucks.

The problem with not reading a whole book is we short even more our already little attention span that we have made worse and worse with technology, immediate gratification, and much more else I don't have time to write.

"Girls have always been more sensitive to social comparison…especially adolescent girls going through puberty." Me: a 24 year old male who is depressed because of social comparison on social media.

Glad I dialed out of all this when I never bought a "smart phone" or any of this ( anti-social media ) stuff...thanks Jonathan