Jonathan Haidt: Has Social Media Destroyed a Generation? 

I’m 23 and have been off of social media (FB, Insta, Twitter) for the past 2 years. My life has never been better. Social media is absolutely a public health emergency in my opinion.

I grew up in the 90's. I can't imagine going back to high school and having everyone in class on their phones posting photos and sending tweets about everything all day long. What a nightmare

I am a middle aged creative arts teacher for teens, and I can say that in the last 10 years I have seen these kids’ ability to imagine and think outside the box diminish rapidly. They have a really hard time imagining something they haven’t already seen on social media. It’s disturbing.

Yup, 100% social media has made people empty and void of empathy.

Really happy to see the effects of social media is being realized. Humans are not made to exist in such large social groups; until recently we existed in relatively small local settings. For all of human history it has been like this, and then all of a sudden the entire world is open to every single person. No wonder we're all messed up in the head.

Social media is probably the worst thing for your mental health

Literally kept my daughter homeschooled for middle school to avoid this. She’s 13 and still so much a kid. She’s more excited to learn about Newton’s laws of motion than any influencer…she still doesn’t even know what an influencer is. Thank god.

I turned 30 this year. I've been glued to a PC almost every day since before I was 10. I needed it to cope with abuse in the home and at school, but lately, I've felt digital devices have ruined and are ruining my life and worked to distance myself from them. I recently started reading books and writing notes by hand again. If I use RU-vid, I watch academic videos instead of "influencers". Already, I remember more and feel smarter, which is very encouraging when trauma sufferers often have poor memory. Re-reading the chapter in the 1st Harry Potter book where Harry finds the Mirror of Erised almost brought me to tears because that's what the PC was for me. A shiny magic box that distracted me with illusions, preventing me from meeting real people and having real experiences. I was almost 30 before I realised I had no friends and nothing to my name, and all the time I should've spent studying or gaining work experience had gone down the drain that was the PC. I've spent the last 10, 15 years in an electronic jail and now have to cope with the reality I'm expected to go back to school, get a job, and start working up in society if I want a better life than the one I have had. I'm trying to do better now, but I shouldn't have had to suffer like that. I still struggle with anger & depression over the time I've lost. Get the Gen Z kids off their phones before the same thing happens to them.

At age 30 I made a facebook account for the first time in order to get back in touch with friends I went to school with at age 20. Everybody had become either extremely political, or extremely depressed. It was like the 10 unique people I had known had became the same person.

I'm a recently retired teacher. Ask any teacher with years of experience, and they'll tell you: kids' minds are being destroyed by social media, and ESPECIALLY by phones. It's insidious, and extremely difficult to counteract. I find it no surprise that the rise of the 'snowflake syndrome' occurred at the same time as the rise in cell-phone popularity grew. Kids' attention spans are shorter than EVER, down in single-digit seconds, computational skills are down, reading skills are at an all time low, language comprehension is down...kids, with the world's most extensive information access system EVER have lost the desire to research. They type in a question and if the answer is not on the first page of suggestions, they often won't even change a letter in their query to seek different answers. They look once, can't find it, give up. Pathetic.

I'm a teacher since 1998 and I can confirm that since the mid 2010s kids' motivation and behaviour has been going downhill.

This guy hit the nail on the head with this discussion. The fact that this video has only been viewed 122k times at this point is sad. This should be shared on social media over and over again

“Has social media destroyed a generation?” -Yes. Source: Me, that generation

Finally, I've been saying this kind of thing for the last several years. It's kind of a no-brainer when you give humans a feedback loop for social interactions when you can respond any way you like without being face to face. It's honestly pretty crazy to me that more actual real-world harm has come from Twitter than from 4chan.

It gives me chills when I see teenagers together and each one of them glued to a smartphone. I hope that people in the future will look back to our times and compare it to the early 1900 when heroin was publicly available. It's simply mindblowing that access to technology is still unregulated.

I think the most damage occurred when social media became mobile. We used to check Facebook at the end of the day...now Facebook and countless other platforms are screaming at us for attention, from our own pockets.

I’m 26 and spent my life online. I am not “anti-social media” but I can see the harm it has done to my mental and emotional health, the amount of happiness I feel as I move through adulthood, my generation, and those younger than me.

What bothers me is that adults exploit their children on social media for their own ego. I wouldn't want my parents' friends all knowing I reacted negatively to me first dentist appointment for example. I've noticed the general lack of boundaries in my generation and respect for people's privacy.

I’m 22, social media really affected my social development in high school ( I didn’t have a phone or social media until the 9th grade). Social media algorithms, video games, and content creators have only gotten more stimulating and addictive over the past few years, i can’t imagine what it’s doing to young children now. I would love to be a child in a pre social media/pre 9/11 world

my generation created social media but never relied on it so much as the younger generations. That disconnect is where the problem lies. We kept reality at the forefront and used social media as a backdrop. look at concerts, We didn't pull cameras out at a show but to capture a moment from the event. we wanted to experience it 1st then share it later. NOW this generation feels it never happened if they don't share it 1st then experience the reactions and replies from it. The act doesn't matter to them if people don't validate that it does matter. as an 80's baby i feel so lucky to grow up the way i did. Extremely horrified by what these young people have to deal with. Remember parents would ask "if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it"? Today?: yes, if it gets them more likes and follows.

Finally! When Twitter came out, I told everyone I knew that it was a social disaster.

social media and covid lockdowns have done in some cases irreversible damage to the young generation

it has ruined more than a generation. Even people in their 50's & 60's are hopelessly addicted to it. I have dealt with hardcore heroin addicts who were moire reliable & than social media addicts. Imagine of people walked around constantly with a drink or a needle in their hand? Unlike drug/alcohol abuse social media use/abuse isn't only glorified it's encouraged.

I knew social media was a cancer when a girl I met in college made me a Facebook page. I deleted it after about a year. Got Instagram, saw how it was the same thing then deleted it less than a year later. I’ve been free of any social media (unless you count RU-vid) for a little more than a decade and it’s great. You don’t need it. If you’re doing it to stay in touch with family then pick up the phone and call or text instead. No excuses.

Without even watching this, I think about what it's done to my mental state and I am in my 50's. I think about the person I am face to face, in real connections with human beings and the person I am online. The internet/social media is not a safe place for passive aggressive introverts. I cant imagine what it does to children who's synapses are being formed online, frightening.

I'm father to two wonderful kids aged 3 and 1 and my heart breaks to think of the pressures they will have to face that I never did. Social media destroys Innocence and puts into children's hands something they aren't ready for. Like Frankenstein's monster, we are now at the mercy of our own creation. It makes me so angry that big tech businesses have done so much to destroy our world.

Whenever I walk outdoors in the street or the park literally everyone I see has their head buried in their phone. It's pretty sad.

I'm only 21 and I can barely connect with people even 2 years younger than me. It genuinely blows my mind how addicted people are to Social media when i never cared for it much at all.

I'm 20 years old and my generation was the first young one to get exposed to social media. I remember being a kid and my friends talking about how many likes they had on their Facebook posts and them being so mesmerized by the whole concept. Me on the other hand, I never really found it that interesting. To this day, I'm still a social media outcast, rarely opening Facebook and even more rarely Instagram. I've never had a Twitter account and don't find the urge to make one. I've found a way to live outside these socials medias and still have social contacts and friends. When looking at the younger generation (post 2003) I don't think the majority of them can survive without Instagram and TikTok which I find kind of sad.

Social media is extremely toxic, I've known this for a while instinctively.

Yea social media has ruined my generation, i knew this as a teen. I dont know who thought social media was okay. When i was 14, i saw it completely changing the people i know. Now im 22, and yea the effects are disastrous. This is coming from a kid that was suffering from depression at a young age.

I've come to believe more and more that the Amish have got it right. At a certain point technology isn't making your life better. We have to be able to willingly give up conveniences that our ruining our spiritual lives.

As someone born in the late '90s, I feel as somewhat in-between, growing up partially without social media. Talking to people even two years younger than me, it feels there is a HUGE CHANGE. Less ability to connect, or talk about sensitive topics, and it's super weird. Throw away the smart phone, and I'll bet these problems would mostly go away.

I've been off social media for a few years now and life has been grand!

So thankful to be gen X, I still get to slowly slip into technology but at the same time grew up without it, so I know how dangerous social media has become. I quit Facebook in 2013, haven't logged back in, I am still alive. It's just crazy to see a room full of gen z kids all on their phones, not even looking at each other and slightly interacting. The effect of this is seen when you try to interact with them in person and they really haven't developed clear in person social skills. Taking criticism and the lack of a thick skin so to speak, is another side effect.

As a millennial (born in ‘91) I’ve been saying for the last 10 years I will not expose my future children to the atrocious amount of screen time or unregulated social media (10 year olds with smart phones?!) that I’ve seen in children a decade younger than me.

"Mostly twitter, facebook and instagram too"... wait until they figure out how bad tiktok is.

Each generation has been struggling with Social Media. Wars are now waged through social media, disinformation is at its peak, and the effects on psychology, especially during formative years, has far reaching consequences.

It’s also making society mentally ill. I’m not joking or being facetious. People are acting crazy in a way I’ve never seen in 43 years on this earth

Grew up in the 60s and 70s. I miss those days of the 80s. The modern culture has destroyed almost all entertainment, TV and even the comic books culture and sci fi culture. It has corrupted politics and corrupted journalism. I miss the old Meet The Press with Tim Russert. I miss the old cartoons. I miss talking with others about books I have read and doing things outdoors. Most of my friends have family now or have moved away. Its lonely, man. I ADMIT IT, that nowadays, I really need social media to find new friends....? : (

It certainly has destroyed the dating scene and dating dynamics of a whole generation...

Happy to hear this being discussed. I'd be interested in hearing about potential second-hand effects of social media. I last posted to social media in the Summer of 2016, it was a decision I made at the time because I didn't really like seeing all the unproductive and often hateful ways people were interacting with each other and discussing positions. Pretty much all of my friends and family have gone in the polar opposite direction, doubling down on social media, pretty much all of them have been sucked into TikTok during the pandemic, one of my friends runs multiple social media clout accounts. When I quit social media, it was just because I didn't like what I was seeing, and had no desire to participate, I wasn't having feelings of depression. Now, after almost six years of being off social media, those feelings of depression and disconnection are creeping in, and I strongly feel it's because of my reduced ability to interact and relate to my friends and family who have, after years of being inundated with social media been pushed toward these insane far left/far right positions that they have become creepily militant about that I find incredibly hard to relate with, leaving me feeling isolated from the people I care about, who may or may not even care about me anymore because some are angry with me for not jumping on their political bandwagons.

Jonathan Haidt's work is very important. He really hits the nail.

Social media brings out the absolute worse in people

Thank you, thank you. More of this please.

Social media gave bullies a loaded gun

"It's difficult to free fools from the chains they revere"- Voltaire

It’s criminal what it’s done

I miss MySpace. That was the only social media that I actually felt was positive and enhanced my experience of life.

Even the terms "Gen X", "Gen Y", "Gen Z". There was no such thing in the old days. They are trying to segment us along every possible dimension as hard as they can.

I'm a self aware gen z. Luckily I was born in 02 so I still remeber a world before smart phones and social media. I remember the rise of social media. I remember not long ago people were normal and all of a sudden things seamlessly changed. Right under our noses

I've been thinking along these lines for awhile now.

I worked at a youth psychiatric locked inpatient ward years ago, and us line staff would shake our heads when we saw how self harming behavior would get picked up by new admissions. A rebellious troubled kid would get admitted to the ward and they would connect with the more troubled patients and get worse. They liked the attention they would get when they started hurting themselves and things wold go from bad to worse. Sounds similar to social media effects today.

Yes. The answer is 100% yes. Current and new generations are and will continue to be mentally handicapped because of it.

I deleted all my social media going on 2yrs now and I can’t ever see using it again.

Thank you for posting videos like this one.

I noticed a huge difference when I got rid of social media in highschool. Such a great talk

Gave up mobile phones and social media 3 years ago society THINKS i'm odd, i KNOW that i'v never been happier though.

It's more than a generation, I know people in their 60s who have been driven mad by this daemonic monstrosity.

Jonathan Haidt is one of our great thinkers. Always a pleasure to listen to him speak.

He is right, a massive shift happened suddenly in the 2010's. I was born in 1987 and that shift was very palpable to me and we need to make some changes because everything is going to hell now.

It seems clear to me, that the harm which social media causes is when it is used as a replacement for actual socializing and in-person engagement. I rarely ever go onto Facebook and feel like I’m more connected to all my friends on there. I believe that younger generations have had social media woven into their upbringing and this has created all these problems because they don’t understand the distinction between real-life, and social media based interactions.

Graduated high school 2012. Uni 2012-2014 (2 years) dropped out because my parents house caught fire. No insurance. Dropped out. Worked on house. Long story. But best thing to ever happen to me. I literally left right before the world went left and crazy. So thankful.

At last! The world waking up to how poisonous social media really is. I constantly shake my head as I walk down the street watching people stare into their phones like zombies. In my head I'm saying, on repeat, '...put the *bleep* thing down, PLEASE!'

"We're caught in a trap, we need central leadership to break it." After explaining how inept Congress is at regulating. Here's a thought, be a leader yourself and start by parenting your kid and saying "NO, I don't care if all the other kids are jumping off bridges. Tell them your dad's a fascist." Problem solved.

Yes the internet has pretty much destroyed relationships. Between social media and online dating it’s a real mess out there sadly. Of course identity politics has also played a big role in the destruction of society as well. Our media is tearing us apart.

It's not even a question anymore, social media and the internet are ruining society not just a generation.

as a 20 y/o, i agree. solution? go out and touch grass.

When we developed and deployed the First Generation Internet, we never thought about social media. We were working on stuff like getting enough I/O bandwidth, and make it resilient so it does not crap out. Social Media is really not tech, it is well, Publishing

At times it seems that it has affected negatively all generations. Now everyone is an expert on any topic and no one seems to want a friendly exchange in person. Maybe I'm getting old, but I miss the days when one could disagree with a friend and still remain friends.

We don't have society anymore, we have social media.

When the Arab spring took off in 2011, there was a lot of talk about the impact social media had on it. It wouldn't have been possible without twitter and facebook, plainly put. This was seen as a good thing back then. Why did we never consider that to be an extremely dangerous warning, especially considering how disastrously the Arab spring turned out?

It’s scary I hate what it has done to young people. My niece is nearly 33 years old she never goes out she spends all her time on social media, she acts like she is 15 not 7years off 40. I am determined my children will not be the same.

I remember when Social Media became big before smart phones let people do it everywhere. Computer rooms/libraries at schools and universities that were only ever used by handful of nerds and socially awkward suddenly were flooded with normies checking and scrolling their social media timeline. The change was jaw dropping but it was clear these normal people had no built in defence with internet communication, they went 0-100 into the deep end unlike us nerds who knew not to take it seriously. I would arrive even early in the morning and the room will still be nearly full of these addicts. The irony is this is still mostly the same today, nerds avoid social media but normies are hopelessly addicted.

Thanks a lot

This is why I want to quit the IT field. I got into it in the early 2000s thinking it would help humanity, but overall, it's been damaging, I think. It didn't turn out as I expected/wanted....

This also reveals the inhumanity of the people behind these products and services. They know they are causing harm to children and adults but they continue regardless. To put it up to personal choice and responsibility but when it comes to ‘misinformation’, they remove individual choice and responsibility.

The best thing I did during COVID was I got off social media and I really think that is was the best thing it have ever done for my 10 yr old girl. She has outright rejected TicTok and made fun of her Dad for downloading it. Which sounds mean but proved that she truly did want anything to do with it.

Absolutely. Computers and calculators in school classroom have taught children they no longer have to THINK.

I was 14 when Facebook got really popular and always avoided social media at all costs...and I gotta say I felt and still feel really alienated from the people I grew up with

Totally agree with everything he said, I’m not on any social media platform and weening myself off RU-vid is my next goal. FU RU-vid!

I hope social media will one day be viewed like slot machines are - harmful old relics which people dabble in briefly before getting bored and going to talk to their friends who arrive at the bar after being caught up in traffic.

We as a culture need to be listening to people like Johnathan Haidt and Jordan Peterson a lot more closely.

YES. 100% YES. Nearly every person I've met over the past 10-15 years have been CHAINED to social media. They are *bound* by it, and have based their entire lives around popularity, image (and a FALSE IMAGE at that), and 'algorithms'. Now, there is almost no way to make distinctions between 'the real version' of a human and their 'social media image'... without MEETING THEM IN PERSON. You literally can't tell what they've actually done vs. what they PURPORT to have done with their lives. Good luck, humanity. Yer gonna need it. 🙄 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨

Just as children mirror adults, emotionally immature and underdeveloped people will mirror (mimic) those they admire. Social media exacerbates and intensifies the deleterious effects that other forms of media already inflicted. The outcomes are very similar to the outcomes of lifelong drug and alcohol abuse. The person remains completely stunted emotionally and intellectually and this intensifies the natural narcissism that is common in the teens and twenties turning into a pathology of narcissism which is common on social media and increasingly in society. Social media risks making people delusional.

Yes and yes! A quick scroll through these platforms and you can see the deterioration of this generation and their ideology.

I have access to a work canteen and every lunchtime the room is silent, every member of staff glued to their phones. It’s sad...no one connects in person anymore.

I sometimes wish I was young today but I'm glad I grew up without omnipresent social media and it's mob.

Mental illness is more than common. I believe it to be the norm. Technology raised the standard of living but lowered quality of life. Two very different metrics

I was born in 1982 , I feel lucky that I was the last generation to experience college before smart phones.

Not fearing an All Mighty God is the down fall of every generation

On top of that, those norms taught by these platforms are usually some form of stupidity.

I was already in my 20s when social media started to really take off in the late 2000s. I didn't grow up with it, and it was pretty easy for me to leave when it got too toxic. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just being an old fart in my critiques of it. I vividly remember the moral panic over violent video games, and how that turned out to be a fat load of nothing. So I think you have to look at things with a skeptical eye. But given the self-admitted nature of the companies running these services, it's hard to deny they aren't exploiting people's insecurities for profit. But so do a lot of corporations. I think there's a lot more to the mental illness epidemic than spending too much time on Facebook, but it certainly seems to be a contributing factor. And you can't deny that cancel culture driven by social media is certainly a thing. I've never seen more visceral hate than on Twitter. I don't know what the solution is here though.

I'm glad I realized how to make the internet useful at a young age. I mean I used social media (not anymore besides youtube and whatsapp) but it never took control over me. It scares me how mentally lazy people have become, but I know we have the strength to recognize our mistakes and correct them

I’m experiencing this with my own children, to devastating effect

Social Media Is so sad. Ppl need to live there lives not watch others.

Yes. Mass socialisation has been going on for long enough to see that it isn't healthy or helping after a certain point.

This is outstanding! As a mother of three who did not have a single social media account until my children’s schools pushed for it I can tell you the devastating effects it has had on myself and my children. Bravo for having a discussion about this. I too believe that social media use is dangerous, deadly and will have long term consequences if left to continue.

No, it revealed a dormant weakness

Well said.