I am 20 now, but when I was in middle school I was one of the students who organized a school wide walkout after the Parkland shooting. I wish I didn’t need to organize and go to that protest, I also wish we didn’t live in a country where SCHOOL SHOOTINGS ARE COMPLETELY NORMALIZED. If you want middle school to focus on having fun and learning then keep them safe.
Amen! I gave my kids permission to go in the Parkland walkout, but they didn’t organize it. I was terrified sending them to school - can’t even imagine how much worse it was for them.
“Adults” like to tell themselves their “maturity & experience” makes them immune to any negative of constantly having their screen in front of their face. But no, they’re not.
Older generations are the worst at the internet. Younger people don't respond to scams, and they don't flood their messages with every possible Emoji. Because we're more savvy about it.
@@frankcooke1692my dad has been falling for a Facebook scam for over a year now. Some “girl” that looks like a supermodel half his age, has been convincing him to regularly send her money
I was in middle school during Vietnam and yes, informed. I remember the scare of friend's older siblings receiving low numbers in the draft lottery. I was not too young to process this.
Now imagine if you had social media showing you actual video from Vietnam directly to you. That’s literally the point. I had the Iraq war and fears of a possible draft as I was approaching draft age. We had the news showing us some video but it was generally large scale and was more or less censored. These kids have access to on the ground video of war zones. Then add to that a lack of in-person social meetings and only interacting how you and I are interacting right now. All they see everywhere is fear mongering and other uncensored mature material on a loop that you and I never experienced at that age.
It is a fascinating argument, and I am learning a lot. But we do have to ask the question: how much more mentally well would young people be if they weren't getting screwed by late stage capitalism? Because even without social media the zoomers wouldn't be doing so hot if the planet was still on fire, wages were still stuck in the 90s, and a fascist was still close to becoming president. You could have the most nurturing social environment imaginable and those problems would be enough to cause a plague of mental illness all by themselves. And then we add the collective trauma of the COVID pandemic. A lot of the current flood of mental illness is not the fault of cell phones. That is the symptom, not the disease.
Considering that Jonathan Haidt thinks that anecdotes about temper tantrums from corporate bosses are valid - not to mention anecdotes about awkward interactions with sex workers and 1990s basic HTML websites for queer people - I'm sure we can conclude that he'd dismiss this outright. Apparently nothing in the adult economic and cultural world is valid if it doesn't resemble the adult economic and cultural world of the 1980s - a point which is routinely thrown around by people with far less intellectual rigor than he purports to have.
given that other countries have kids suffering in the same ways in the same timeframe, despite exerting far more control over capitalism's spiral (actual healthcare/free higher ed/social & mental programs/housing/etc), i'd venture that smart phones/social media play the far bigger role out of the 2 issues.
No individuals are afforded control over capitalism's spiral. There are societies tryingbto mitigate harms better than others, but the trajectory remains apperent to everone.
I find it very telling that Haidt considers young people disengaging from toxic corporate cultures, expecting accommodation for their individual humanity, calling out the harm of the microagressions they experience, and concerning themselves with the plight of others in the world as bad things, just because they have traction now in a way that they didn't when he was young. You know what else has changed since Haidt was young? The expectation that you could grow up to build a career, own a home, and start a family. As an elder millenial, these things were slipping away when I was a young adult, and it must be crushing to look at the future as a child or young adult now. Sure, social media and algorithms contribute their own unique harms, but that's not really what he's talking about here. He gives away the game every time he stops just short of calling Gen Z "snowflakes." If engagement with the world is harmful to kids, the answer isn't to try to further isolate kids from it until they're "old enough" -- it's our job as the adults in the room to demand and build a better, less harmful world. That's a lot harder than taking kid's phones away, but it's the work that's going to matter in the end.
@KH-tt3wv ..agree with about everything you wrote ‐- although i do think there ought to be some form of moderation not unlike what was being advocated-for in the earlier 90s (before the internet hit our shores here on the other side of the world mid90s and i was diving into geocities and talkcity and local chat platforms (&MUDs a couple years later!) aged 13) -- that whole thing about making sure a limit on TV time was set, because if the kid's stuck to the TV(or phone in this case) they're not outside playing/messing around with other creative outlets and .doing. things/building social bonds and learning social skills, interacting with 'really people etc-- arguably that .can. be done online and in/be some pretty focused forms of edutainment even, but live, in-person social engagement is rather a separate if intertwined set of skills/behaviours that do require practice to reach comfort levels in many, and outdoor learning and letting them/teaching them how to be firmly rooted in their real physical environment and engaged with persons nearby in their lived-in society (outside of school) may also help build some resistances against being sucked in by people trying to convince them their world is the reality presented by the ceaseless bombardments of those people's words and videos' vitriol and trash-tinted glasses they're selling as life-outlook framer-s. my white-collar noncollege-ed (though he rather tended not to present as that, lol; it hadn't been much of a choice back then) dad has somehow managed to fall for that sort of sh1te (semiretired, more phone time than is likely healthy(pot-kettle, ik lol) × shakeylittle-to-no science background means he's still forwarding anti-c19vax bs to the family group.. and my least-curiositydivestudying also-millenial sibling&theirspouse sometimes worryingly seem like they actually listen to him beyond familial interactions and the kindgenerous attention nicepeople afford others. (they're so the only ones who have kids, so.. doubly worrying, plus the catch22 of having aLot-less-time-to, even if they .were. inclined toward heavyreading... justrealisedhowlateitis,haveanappointment-- tl;dr i wasn't sheltered from gross realities but also didn't have them foie-gras'd & firehosed down/at me; ithink healthy limits exist for adults tho maaaaany of us are terribad at enforcing them -- and how much worse can it get for kids who are supposed to be learning how to self-regulate and determine best&healthy priorities for themselves wrt basic things (homework vs leisure/specialinterestsoutsideschoolwork,etc) and all when globally adults are also having such a hard time in such deliberatelyaddictive environments themselves? ...ithink I didn't even intothe whole rise of childhood vision issues worldwide thing yet from kids being given small screens for distraction from when they were tinies. .. sorry this will likely be a tower (keyboard lagging in buffer on mobile is a tell..?); hopefully my adhd butt can at least remember to come back to add paragraphs and-or coherency!edits 😅😅🫠🫠🫠🙈🙇
My 20 year old daughter and I were talking about this yesterday. After talking for a few minutes, I asked her if the active shooter drills in school, while growing up, helped to contribute to the anxiety. She said, absolutely, yes. I didn’t have these drills so I can’t relate and kids can’t really describe how they feel about them after the fact. It’s not until later they realize the danger they were in just by going to school everyday.
I volunteered at my kids' elementary school in the early 2000's and was at school during 2 lockdown drills. I even felt a little traumatized by the idea of an active shooter in the school. We had to close all windows and doors, sit quietly against the wall, and wait for the teacher to send an email with the count of how many students were in the classroom. If the count was off, or the Internet was giving the teacher trouble, we had to wait even longer, while imagining we could get killed any second, or see our best friends, sisters, brothers, everyone, anyone get shot with an AR.
Was calling 911 on their phones part of the drill? There are a handful of kids at my grandson's elementary school who have phones. Part of their active shooter drill is... if you have a phone, call 911....
One of our colleges (UNC) had a lockdown (at the end of last year) for someone shooting at and killing a professor. These kids are traumatized from all the years of being told they could be murdered while in their classrooms, and it doesn’t go away when the shooting starts at their colleges. In 2022, we had a mass shooting by a 15 year old with open access to firearms in his home. He took aim at and killed his brother then went for a stroll around his neighborhood killing 4 more people and injuring 2 others. The neighborhoods reputation was a middle class, safe, neighborhood, nobody thought it would happen there. Our kids have a different mentality than us. They look at everyone like a potential threat, we don’t. We weren’t raised in the active shooter generation. I can see how they would all be anxious or even a little paranoid all the time.
My 3 year old grandson talks to his mom about death and the state of the world all the time. It is about the quality of their life experience and the adults in their life enabling their agency. It is about balance and using the tools in their lives to increase their confidence in their ability to deal with life
I love offline even though I don’t always agree due to my own experience being kind of an early internet adopter and being raised quite liberally… I just could not finish listening to this man. He is extremely dismissive about the good and he greatly exaggerates and emphasizes the bad. And his answer is “let’s go back in time by 3 decades” which is to me the equivalent of giving up on these kids and their use of technology. We cannot teach them to be responsible it is too much time and effort to change anything here. It’s sad and this man should not have an authoritative voice in any solution
I think the idea that middle schoolers worry about the war in Ukraine because of social media is stupid. When I was a kid in the early 90s we worried about Somalia and the reorganization of the former Soviet Bloc countries because it was something parents talked about and it was on the news. Yes, social media is a contributing factor, but kids weren’t worry free before just because we didn’t have social media.
--Back then we were also taught literally the "correct" side to be on in these matters. There was no room for dissenting thoughts or having a different perspective. Todays social media. Having access to opinions and lived experiences from both sides, makes us have access to a broader view of things. Like for example being 100% on Israels side in the current atrocities. Today we can know better.
I don't think you realize the insane amounts of anxiety, depression, and hopelessness kids experience now. It's not just because of political issues, social media in general really messes with kids (and adults) brains.
You were not normal To be clear, my friends and I followed the news in middle school too. We were not normal. When I got a summer job I learned most of my piers talked about sex, gossip and sports and nothing else. They would get angry if you tried to talk about _anything_ else.
@@captain_context9991 Remember that it cuts both ways. There is evidence that young boys and girls are diverging politically, with young boys becoming far right. Thanks to social media, Andrew Tate and his ilk are raising this current generation of boys. If you don't know who that is, congratulations, just know he's the distillation of all of the worst misogynistic impulses of today. You can check out Prog G's TED talk that the US is destroying the lives of young people, or if you're adventurous, Some More News with Cody Johnston's "Are Men OK?"
Crazy how he goes on one hand saying "We can't coddle kids, they need to be brave and face new things" to "Social media is unbearable and impossible to handle". He also has this weird old man ish thing going on where "If we could only go back to the X years ago time, we'd be great". It wouldn't surprise me if he started saying "Cyberbullying is bad, but IRL bullying serves a useful purpose and we shouldn't keep kids out of it." Very strange choice of guests, Jon.
After listening a bit further, I have to comment again. The guest may be an expert on this topic, but he is clearly not an expert on education and the education system. Too many of his solutions are naive and unrealistic. At about 29 minutes, the guest suggests that allowing phones in schools is insane. I maintain that teaching kids how to use phones and digital tools appropriately is the right approach. Effective classroom management techniques can prevent students from being distracted during class. Schools can implement rules and strategies that will reduce the misuse of phones at school. To be clear, I’m not saying I never have students misbehaving, but I can confidently state that the majority of the time, students are focused on the activities I’ve assigned using the available tools. It’s absurd to believe that banning phones is the only solution. The more you ban something, the more people want it. The guest’s comment about students needing to go to the bathroom more frequently to check their phones illustrates the need for teaching management rather than abstinence.
Absolutely! You're a rare teacher that is teaching them *where they are* and not where YOU were or even your parents are. Schools should be the first to adapt to new technology, not the last.
As a fellow MS teacher, I use to agree with this. Teaching the photography elective we would go over settings on their phone and using it instead of just a digital camera. As a math teacher, it is handy to have access to the calculator. However, we give every student a chromebook and many online tools can be taught using it. Also, when students are at school and not in a class where you can monitor, they will do what they want, which is social media. The only way they learn to communicate inperson is by taking the phones away for the whole day.
The fact that you are a teacher and don't understand the anecdotal fallacy is quite disturbing. Just because you personally don't experience what he is talking about in your class room doesn't mean your classroom is representative OR that your kids aren't struggling with serious emotional health issues because of cell phone use. We have evidence that schools that have banned cell phones have better outcomes. Maybe it's time for you as a teacher to start researching this subject seriously?
@@Freerider93yes. Some people apply their experience, anecdotally, to all situations. A teacher should know that. Your experience is not all situations.
This was a really hard one to watch. I'm sure most people agree there are problems but these solutions seem to all miss the mark. One of my core problems is that smartphone and social media are not the same thing. Focus on general social media problems instead of "the phone"
They aren’t identical but having a video, music, and video game system (the frequent other uses of smart phones in classrooms) is still a major distraction. Spoken from experience. I don’t think you believe a student affectively having a TV playing during their lessons is tenable.
Cory Doctorow had a recent blog post about this that was pretty good. He points out that the issue with our phones often boils down to the data-collection & advertisement business model. Whether it's impossible body standards, vaccine scepticism, political and religious radicalization, or any number of other issues, they're all made worse by the algorithms ability to keep people's eyes glued to the screen. Instead of banning phones, maybe we should be banning the ways in which some companies exploit our data in an attempt to keep us hooked on our phones?
@@quietreason8679 I am in firm agreement that the underlying models and how they are used to target kids and adults is a big part of this. However, I still think banning phones from classes (meaning they physically do not have them) while giving parents sone concrete alternatives for safety (and hopefully addressing those safety woes head on) is still the best course in conjunction. Smart phones and their features, not just their algorithms are too distracting for class time.
Yeah-a lot of things he was talking about came off as a survival of the fittest type of thing. Especially when he goes over that some kids just get excluded, and brushes it off like it’s nothing.
@@aneru9396 He's not brushing it off, he's talking about REALITY. Yes, some kids get left out. The point is about kids learning to overcome struggles, like this, being a valuable life skill children aren't learning. Why would he talk about it more than what he did when that isn't the point of the discussion.........
Exactly - one of his anecdotes that he doesn’t understand are connected to his own personal “vibes” about the world. Say what you will about Gen Z, I can’t say I felt all that bad about boomer corporate bosses throwing a fit because their youngest employees question the need to throw their entire lives into their work when it isn’t absolutely necessary. The fact that this doesn’t occur to Jonathan Heidt is pretty discouraging.
Haidt is 30 years behind in his views on psychology, so it's no wonder he isn't accepting of modern solutions. He probably thinks most autistic and ADHD people are misdiagnosed. His solution is mask or be left behind.
Edit: Seems like many agree with me. By far the worse offline episode in awhile. The first 20 seconds literally killed my entire desire to watch the video.
yeah this one is pretty boomery. I expected John to push back on this guest from some of his weird conservative-lite views and he really didn’t at all.
I actually don't disagree with you. I think parents should have a lot of INFLUENCE over what information their children receive, but I do not believe there should have CONTROL over information, education, or access therein. The world is also an educational experience and a lot of parents have become convinced that it is corrupting and bad, and instead of preparing their children with critical thinking skills, they just try to conceal them from it and brainwash them into accepting no new information that they haven't first vetted.
@@SL420- Haidt never addresses the culpability of the parents of these children. He's exploiting the 'grievance culture' market. Many parents of his generation have children that they fail to connect with, and he is scapegoating 'technology' as an explanation, rather than looking inward at how they have been failed by their parents. The people who buy his books are looking for excuses, not solutions.
As a 33 year old millenial I would respect the younger colleagues who refuse to work on weekends. I only learned to stand my ground in my late 20s. It's not asking for accomodation, it's a norm in the countries with decent labor laws
I am 52 years old and a mom. I totally understand this argument. However, I am equally concerned about adults. I know many people my age who have completely lost their minds and are more glued to their phones than their kids. I just wish we could apply this logic to everyone. Big tech companies could re-engineer their algorithms and technology for healthier outcomes and they don’t - for profit. I wish more blame went there.
I grew up in the Cold War era, and in grade school, we ducked and covered and worried the Russians were going to drop "the bomb". Then was Vietnam. There were no smart phones.
Now imagine all that trauma with the added media of uncensored video from war zones, an avalanche of public opinion being shoved down your throat, fear mongering that any Joe Smo can make sound informed or official with no actual standing. These kids are going through everything we did with the addition of all these social media issues. It’s not an “or” situation, it’s an “and” and it absolutely makes it worse
I believe that A Lot of general anxiety in yonger generations has to do with the increase in mass shootings and the active shooter drills they went through... Addition/Edit: This peron really doesn't know how the internet works.
This guest was odd.. I can’t quite put my finger on it. I feel like he’s making sweeping generalizations especially when referencing gender differences and certain behaviours. He was all over the place imo The loss of community I think is the biggest hit. All we have are corporations now
Seems like he's at the stage of his evolution where he's about to tip over into full-blown right-wing rhetoric but doesn't want to seem that way. He's working out a way to convincingly justify his biases about "PC culture" and "safe spaces" in the conclusions, but he doesn't have the patter down yet and it seems forced and contradictory.
@@JohnDopplerHaidt has gotten more attention from right wing circles in the last ten years after he published the Righteous Mind, mostly because he’s a little center right and has professional disagreements with things like trigger warnings. That said he’s not disrespectful or dismissive of the LGBTQ crowd like actual right wingers. I think what you’re sensing is someone stepping between echo chambers. There’s a coded dialect we all fall into and so when someone steps across there’s like a lingering expectation of shared understanding and framing that doesn’t match up. I’ve read some of his books, and he has some really great perspectives on moral psychology. He’s just more to the right than I am, and that’s okay.
I think Haidt confused prevalence and reporting. While I can’t disagree with the likelihood that there is more mental distress in our younger generations, I think the reason it’s more of an issue is because people aren’t masking it like they used to have to. The thing we’re seeing is partly an increase in prevalence, but more so a result of greater reporting and awareness
I wonder if Haidt believes in masking. I get the impression he probably doubts much of the diagnoses for autism and ADHD, based on his antiquated views.
I did a writing prompt with my 5th graders who have cognitive, neurological and developmental disabilities "Should We Have Cell Phones in school?" All of them the first reason they said was yes because if something awful happens at school i have to be able to talk to my parents. I feel like that's a major problem these kids should not have to worry about.
As an lgbtq+ person who figured that out around middle school in like, 2013 or so- the Internet was amazing to finally have a way to give words to who I am. However, it also meant that I would hear about every horrible thing that happens to lgbtq+ people. So, I definitely would say that it was good to have the Internet at that time in my life as a closeted queer person in a rural, conservative family. At the same time though, there are some horrors that I've seen and that I can never forget due to the Internet
Yeah this guy is a bit extreme. While I appreciate his point of view but I this becomes an issue when parents aren't involved in their kids lives. I have 2 teens. Both have internet access. Both have phones. My wife spend ton of time talking about what isn't good, what to avoid. The conversations that my parents would not have with me about the world is now so much easier. This guys research is basically "what would bad content do to people" and he found that it can affect kids without monitoring their behavior. Surprised? Not really. This is a bit alarmist even for PSA.
This video is an excellent demonstration of why Haidt is problematic. He dismisses out of hand that people say he confuses correlation with causation, and then he goes on to talk about correlation as if it's causation. When asked about the best evidence, he doesn't cite a controlled experiment or a large-n study that controls for all those other variables he dismisses. Instead he just cites himself: "I couldn't find anyone saying anything I disagree with, so my argument must be true"...
Haidt is also self-contradictory. In one book he argues against safe spaces and trigger warnings, and in his very next book argues for banning the thing doing the harm. To summarize, he's against content warnings and freedom of association, but for banning "dangerous" materials. Make up your mind Jonathan, are youth fragile or not?
@thecuriousboardgamer agree. Even here he contradicts himself. Plus he uses the term "happiness" as if it's a definite term between different people. I would add, are people supposed to rate our (or others) lives on the someone'sdefinition of "happiness"? Then they are set up for dissatisfied lives and possibly a lack of empathy and growth. We have a range of emotions. I just don't think we should rate our lives on someone's definition of happiness.
It's very transparent to me that he is not a serious person. He's an industry plant. A publisher saw an opportunity to promote a career intellectual to exploit the grievances of disenfranchised fathers. He is only there to reaffirm their grievances and sell books to them.
I haven't gone deep on Haidt before, but he's been around a long time and I've always just kinda accepted that he's a serious writer and researcher. But I was entirely unimpressed with him here. Starting with his wholesale dismissal of alternate theories with "eh, that's the pundit bias where if all you care about is climate change then you'll think it's the cause of everything." Like... no, that's not remotely the case here with Jon. Then he goes on to cite anecdote after anecdote. I'm not even saying I disagree with his premise or think his suggestions are necessarily wrong, I just really dislike bad arguments for my own side. Stop making good ideas look like they have sloppy thinking behind them! Go stand in the corner with Malcolm Gladwell until you're ready to be a mature thinker.
@@JayBea If I recall he started to appear about 12 or 15 years ago, doing the circuit. He has a good agent who tried to crowbar him into the same sentence as Dawkins and Sam Harris, but if you look beneath the surface he doesn't have the same credentials. He's a sociology professor, and not to detract from anybody who chooses to study those kinds of fields, but it's a bit of a circle-jerk when removed from any context - which he lacks. He's sort of the Coldplay of the 'intellectual speaker' genre.
Phones got in school when guns got in. And gun emergency drills are the source of a lot of that anxiety because it makes it seems like gun violence far more prevalent
As an educator of middle school students, my students use digital tools all the time. I disagree with the approach of banning all phones. I believe that we should be teaching students how to use their phones as tools as well as toys. We should be teaching them how to actively regulate their phone usage as well as how to investigate information they hear. Taking the ‘toys’ away while they’re in school and then giving them back to them when they’re done school only leads to adults who are unable to manage themselves with their digital toys properly. I have noticed this common approach in our society, shutting things down rather than fix the systemic problems. The systemic problem here is that digital tools can be detrimental, but if used properly they are also valuable in fighting ignorance and misinformation.
You can teach the critical thinking piece without the cell phone. Use books with pictures. Sounds like the teacher is addicted also. Use a pencil and paper. If saving paper electronic tablets would work inside the classroom that can only send and not receive.
This is exactly what teachers need to be doing! I've been saying it for a while, but instead? Our school system spends tens of thousands of taxpayer money on Yondr.
@@dolliscrawford280 Old man yells at cloud. Teachers need to teach students WHERE THEY ARE, not in the Leave it to Beaver place that you believe all schools to be. Teaching them to use technology with their daily lives, gives our students an advantage.
8:23 wait wait wait! mental health was “fine???!!?!” kids’ mental health was never fine. I’m an older millennial and I was gaslit daily by my parents, peers and teachers. I was in significant distress. my life was miserable every single day. I was not “fine” my anxiety, depression and psychosis were undiagnosed and untreated for more than 20 years. no one ever asked about my mental health. I was anything but “fine” when I was in middle school in the 90s, I read almost every book in my local library’s psychology section. had I not educated myself, it probably would have taken even more than 20 years to get a full and accurate diagnosis I try not to resort to insults, but you can go to hell. I am deeply, personally wounded by your crass, overbroad and unscientific statements about mental health not being a crisis over the past few decades. just because I was abused into silence did NOT mean I was “fine” I can’t even listen to this any more. you all owe me an apology-and you owe one to everyone else that suffered in silence and were showered with emotional abuse.
Based on the comments, I'm surprised to find that I don't have much that I disagree with. Some details are rough, but I pretty agree with the big picture stuff. In my experience, there does need to be some friction between minors and smartphones. It's really an exercise of boundaries to figure out getting stuff done and the things you can deal with. There's a time and place and it definitely isn't all the time. The biggest argument for phone bans in schools comes from places that tried it. It helps a lot. And in emergencies, parents just contact the school. There are contructive ways to keep students connected to the people they need. However, where I heavily diagree is where Haidt brings up KOSA which feels more like a way for politicians to exert their own form of moderation under the guise of protecting the children. A more general and sustainable solution should look at the way the algorithms work to cut down on the outrage cycle.
Wow, this is some boomer nonsense. Really bro? It’s the ‘going to a protest’ and not ‘we have active shooter drills every month’? Phones don’t have to be isolating. We can let them be, or we can not let them be.
I didn't get the impression that he was saying that going to a protest is the problem, but rather that being at the beck and call of constant notifications that usually represent social, emotional, and current events stressors do children significant harm. Their connectedness becomes not merely an obligation, but a constant threat, and living under constant threat can cause significant trauma. I developed PTSD from the constant threat of a combat environment, and could see how we're traumatizing kids by increasing their constant burden so much. He's not saying this is the first time kids have experienced such a thing, but rather that removing the constant obligation could help.
Times change, in the past 11 year olds were serving in the civil war. Kids are so much smarter these days. Maybe not based on the previous litmus tests though.
I'm at @16:00 and it's a climb to listen around the guest's gendered behavior generalizations. I realize what he is saying is broadly true but as a girl child through to adult woman, I never played the gossip game or whatever; I actively shun mean-girl drama, mainly doing what's being described by Jonathan Haidt, at length, as boy-coded activities. So, do these generalizations about boys and girls, never mind apparently anything outside the binary, apply the same way to the opposite sex? Because despite having done all the things that Haidt says boys do for dopamine with a side of fun, I have all the things that he says men who grew up that way lack. Or is it generational? I am much older than Gen Anxious, so pursuing stimulation like video games or p0rn still required leaving your home and navigating the real world on some level when I was a tween
How about why are people having kids? Apparently everyone is so miserable, capitalism and democracy are crumbling, drug addiction and people experiencing homelessness are skyrocketing, bankruptcy caused by medical costs, climate refugees will be the norm in 20 years if we’re lucky. I’m asking seriously, why?
I get his point, about phone free school but in a society where school shootings are not uncommon it feels risky to make it difficult for your kid to reach you, but I see how a flip phone does the job.
As a boomer I gotta point out one other big change I've seen. Kids don't enjoy the outdoors much anymore. When we were teens and smoking weed, at least we were out in the woods or by the lake. Nature has a healing effect.
It's the parents job, not the schools. My child was embarrassed having a fip phone last year in the 8th grade, so they never pulled it out at school unless they needed to contact me after school. Be a parent and prevent them from having unrestricted access to social media and the internet.
As someone who has a master degree in applied psychology, it’s pretty clear that a lot issues that the guest talked about is actually outside of his expertise and he was very ignorant of the limitations of social psychology. He was actually talking more like a privileged businessman: more bluffings and biases, less truth.
I understand your concern and the idea that your child can use the phone to get help. The problem, though is that the phone can also be used by the shooter to find your child, when they hear the phone go off and by monitoring social media in the moment.
@@christinaheater2500 I'm sorry, you're saying active shooters check Facebook to find their targets while actively shooting? How does that work exactly? Just wondering if the 6 year olds that aren't old enough have facebook profiles are postong their class room number or maybe some other way? They must, and then shooter sees the post because they're obviously friends with every student in the entire school? In uvalde the cops told students to call out for help and the shooter got to the students first and executed them, do you want to ban all cops too? Cell phones might ring so they have to die alone and without any way to call for help? Like what are you even saying
I have always had a very strong social media rules. 1.) Never ever follow anyone you work with outside of LinkedIn. 2.) Only follow people you know in real life. Anyone you want to see that you don't know in real life has a public profile.
I'm really disappointed in this. You guys are always talking about things with the general public like how the economy is doing, how people feel about crime, etc related to polling and how feelings can be a misrepresentation of reality, but there is no pushback when his primary argument is that no one says social media is positive? Just because something sounds right doesn't mean it is and I don't like the way you just allowed him to soapbox. He goes from talking about how kids need to encounter difficulty and scrape their knees, but god forbid they play violent video games or see gore. I don't know, I didn't find his arguments convincing and I wish you'd pushed back harder on his reasoning that leads to the ideas he's selling.
Honestly I don’t entirely fault Jon for this. He gave him free rein to say the deeply stupid things he never gets to say on media outlets where he’s treated like the next Great American Genius out to save America’s children. He’s been exposed.
He's self-contradictory. Says trigger warnings and safe spaces teach kids that they're fragile and then he wants to ban phones because... kids are fragile.
But we DO need to have this conversation. It is how we move forward. I don't have an issue with this topic & this discussion. I don't want to stay in my bubble....I want to hear all sides.
@@TheMattFarmer I actually don't see it this way. Watch him interviewed on the Daily Show and you'd think he was the savior of America's children. Jon helped to expose him as just another regressive right wing boomer - something corporate media certainly was never going to do.
My dog is in heat so I'm hanging out here in the warm sun...saving up the memory for the cold times,lol. Positive vibes from New Hampshire, remember to be kind to each other and yourself during these trying times.
I think if Jonathan haidt partnered with youth advocacy orgs and engaged in some professional mentorship with his time that the message he spends an awful lot of time promoting on late night talk shows and on the news would probably get through to a lot more folks who need to hear it. Kids hearing from kids that are normalizing how social media/screens aren't good for them will work a lot better than making them feel adults are allowed but they have to wait. Haven't we all heard of teen drinking...? Inclusivity and cross generational collaboration would make Jonathan's work pop, have greater persuasive power and reach, and would likely make people feel he's less old or out of touch himself as a messenger. This is lowkey why I love watching Jon and max talk about it, because they're more fun and relatable. I legitimately work as a researcher on a study just like thus about social media's impact on developmental mental health in kids, but I'm sorry you're just going to start to lose people when you try to speak outside of your scope - and I think he's probably a great dad if he has kids and a very smart academic - but since when is that who kids form their opinions on the social world from. People don't want to be more like adults in nerdiness, genuine conviction, or hard work-ethic, but rather in terms of liberty. It sucks being told you're not old enough yet, and perhaps adults don't leave as great of a model as they think when it comes to their own screen-based behaviors making it v unfair when adults talk like this. Tamagatchis and DS was a better era than screw it let's give them all iPhones. And Jonathan's message may be best received and most effective if he worked on educating parents and clinicians on methods for actually implementing "unplugging" initiatives in the name of all the perils of social media he's been pointing out instead of he himself trying to be the advocate for the youth. Self-awareness and cultural humility go a long way
The other day I saw a guy buy a newspaper at 7/11 and pay cash for it. Up to that point I had no idea that those things were still possible. I'm actually glad that they're still available because broadsheet newspapers have a lot of practical applications. I'm about to do some re-decorating, for example.
I take any parent (or frankly anyone rightly concerned with school safety) seriously on the issue of gun violence and the decades of inaction that have frayed trust and nerves of everyone who wants to see change. I think there are meaningful ways to think about technology and real reforms to deal with that particular blight. Speaking as a teacher (specifically a middle school teacher) I do need to insist that the current smart phone status quo is completely unacceptable. In a full school year, I had not a single day or class period where phone use was not a problem, and where class cohesion, focus, and engagement were not undermined. The social aspect of the technology is the most salient here. The majority of the students have the phones and reinforce their use for each other. Even when a phone has been temporarily confiscated and locked in my desk, I’ve seen my students fixate and grow anxious by it merely being nearby. These all add up to hours and even days of compromised education. I am happy to entertain many solutions here, but unfettered access to the smart phones is killing the necessities of the student led (and essential) part of their collective learning development. It is unconscionable.
I was not “fine” during Bush. I was not being provided any mental health support either. If it isn’t known about, does it therefore not exist? Does my childhood mental health not matter because it predated the internet, smart phones, etc?
To the kids.... It probably makes adults look awfully old to want to ban their social media "lifeline" in school. But its probably just a very, very good idea. Because this is not healthy.
I'm surprised it's even a controversy to ban phones in school. They didn't even know they would be bad for kids' mental health when I was growing up, but schools banned them anyway because they were distracting.
I am just as worried about the adults as the kids regarding social media and smart phone use. Heck, I'm probably MORE worried about the adults. Kids are often more resilient than adults. At around 25:00 Haidt's speculation is a bit too far-fetched. He begins sharing "KIDS THESE DAYS" anecdotes. Oh please. Social awkwardness and social avoidance is not a new problem with young people. The bigger problem is addiction to these apps and devices, which is just as bad with Boomers as it is with Zoomers.
When I was a kid back in the 70's and 80's I realize now that I had all sorts of anxiety and depression and other mental issues due to the trauma that was going on my my home life and in the world around me, but nobody recognized it for what it was back then or did anything to try and treat it. I was just a problem child acting out.
My parents went into teaching in the 80s because they received good pensions and could help the community. They told me to not pursue a career in teaching because they rarely felt valued and it wasn’t until I started substituting myself to realize they were right. I simply do not get paid enough to deal with this. I don’t think social media is any more guilty than any access to the internet. Since avoiding the internet is largely impossible we must accept that kids might know more younger. The key would be reducing global strife while promoting prosocial behavior. Like flood the system with good things… if you can’t beat them join them and out-work them. It starts at home because most teachers are wasting time being parents when obnoxious and frankly bratty children expect life to revolve around them. Social media tends to increase this self obsession for sure but if parents together with teachers teach self discipline that is the root issue in my opinion.
Exactly. Not allowing your kid to access social media until 16 isn't going to help if literally all their friends are on it at 12. If anything, that makes it worse. There has to be coordination.
@KuueenKumi his argument also ignores that kids can have basic flip phones still. It's the 24/7 access to social media and unfettered internet that is causing the issues.
I agree bump stocks should be illegal, but they reduce lethality of an AR15 in these spree mass killings. There is a reason the M16A2 has a 3 shot limiter. When you aim each round, the lethality goes through the roof. Full auto like this is not used for killing, but for suppressing an enemy in combat.
I'm Gen X. I read the newspaper in middle school. I delivered the dang things. I also watched the evening news with my parents. Kids in middle school are able to understand serious issues at a base level to start honing their critical thinking skills. To say this automatically produces crippling anxiety is simplistic.
...i was doing that about that age in the early 2000s (alongside school and associated clubs and the internet and theslightestbitofgaming, bc undiagnosed adhd&possibly(probably)otherstuff × me at-the-time = compulsive procrastination of-sorts (still happening, orz) -- but i'm also from the opposite side of the world so things probably move/d differently at some points here.. edited2add that i forgot i'd intended to echo (& also wish some back to) the above commentor's latter sentence! i adore goodfaith & goodwill, in such short supply these days🥹💕
I'm in my 40s. I grew up with right wing parents that controlled most of my down time. I was not ok. My anxiety was through the roof feeling I was always watched and judged, if not by adults, then by God. I am not neurotypical, as an atypical AFAB person, I was "left out". At the end of high school I had a break down and couldn't finish college. It has taken years, over a decade to feel stable in myself. I only realized why I didn't fit in as an agender, possibly autistic but undiagnosed person. RU-vid gave me words for the experience. I am so happy others in the LGBT+ space and neurodivergent space can get this information earlier. I'm not saying don't ban phones in schools or don't limit social media. This seems pretty important. But that doesn't address the fact that as a society we don't have equal access to safe places where kids can explore and play. It doesn't address that our schools are in crisis due to lack of funding. Homelessness is only rising due to over inflated housing costs. Parents can't be as present because they're both working and often multiple jobs. For some kids, a phone, and yes, social media, may be the only relief they have from a grim present and worse future. Also, a deadline doesn't trump a person's well-being. Only those in emergency services be held to such standards and fairly compensated for it. For the average worker, the experience is one of being treated as a cog and thrown out the moment there's an issue. It's so toxic it burnt up my body in my late 20s and I'm on disability now because my health plummeted so badly. Sorry for the rant. I can see from the comments that this hit a nerve with a lot of people.
Just saw a video about Dutch children being the happiest of the world. One element that contributes to this, is that children are taken seriously. They, elementary school children, have their own news on the public broadcast, where the daily news is presented on their level. A lot of grownups admit, a bit sheepishly, that they prefer to watch this Jeugd Jornaal ((The youth news report), because it’s easier to follow with more explanation.
I graduated from a mid-western high school in 2002, during my freshman year Columbine happened and by my senior year 9/11 happened. Cell phones were around and quickly getting more common. Social anxieties were ever present and clearly a social stigma. I feel cell phones/social media exacerbate mental health issues. It's like most things in the world there are good and bad, shades of gray.
I'm not comfortable hiding the real world from kids. Take the time to explain what's going on and hold space for kids to feel whatever they're feeling then help them through it. Critical thinking skills are critical and kids don't learn those in an isolated world
I'm not a parent, I only took 1 psych class in college just to meet my elective requirement, so take this with a grain of salt. I don't think kids under 16 should even have a smart phone at all. A classic cell phone sure, for calls and texts, a calculator, basic functions like that. But that's it. Most other functions don't seem necessary, at least not until you're out in the world working, driving, etc.
I can see why there would be a downside to banning phones in American schools ... you know, mass shooters. But everywhere else it can only reap positive benefits.
Jon actually did a good job of exposing Jonathan Haidt as someone who's so absolutely correct about phones and kids in schools and the benefits of removing them...and genuinely sounds like an absolute idiot about politics and culture when it comes to adults. (Just blithely saying that 1990s websites solved the problem of queer people connecting with one another back then?? Certainly wasn't my experience growing up as a queer person. What a deeply stupid thing to say.) I can't say I 1000% disagree with absolutely everything he says, but...if he spent 10% of the time he spends thinking about kids considering the facts of what he says about adults, he wouldn't sound like he should be an idiot shill for right wing media. Deeply disappointing.
This comment is perfect distillation of exactly what he is talking about. Your first instinct is to attack, attack, attack. It's all about personal experience and "vibes". His statement on queer connections on the internet is objective researched fact. The internet did allow gay people who are a small percentage of the population to find connection and build communities. The fact that this wasn't your personal experience is known as the anecdotal fallacy. Your personal experience is not evidence of a larger point. He doesn't sound like a right wing shill at all. He's exposing the extremism created by impersonal social media enteractions, and unwittingly you're helping expose this truth
@@Freerider93 how is this an attack? He admits “these are anecdotes” for many of the claims I’m talking about, - as in, his personal experience and "vibes" - and presents no evidence that remotely resembles the rigorous evidence he presents in his book. Care to present evidence as thoroughly sourced as what he uses in his book about kids to prove that crappy 1990s websites were enough to connect queer people? Or are you just another triggered right winger who loses it when they have to confront a cultural reality they never liked and don’t like?
@@andrewmcmanus9023 You called a highly accomplished researcher a political shill. Do you honestly not understand how this is an attack? Then you attack me as the "other" because I don't agree with you. I took your advice and with in 30 seconds I found evidence supporting this point at the National Library of Medicine. Gay and Bisexual men's use of the Internet: Research from the 1990s through 2013. Yes you found the right one today. No I'm not a right wing extremist, I'm a radical centrist who enjoys calling out toxic progressive garbage.
My kids, HS & MS, have the Light Phone, which is a just a phone with texting but no camera and can't receive photos. This phone has been great but I can see how addicting the phone can be just given how much my HS kid texts even on the Light Phone.
He said he’s never heard a counter-argument to no phones in school. As a public High School teacher of 26 years (who knows all too well how kids have changed over the past 2.5 decades), may I offer one: School shootings. It’s the reality, and it was a lifeline during our school’s deadly shooting. PLEASE consider the sad reality of the world these kids are growing up in. That said, phones are often a problem in the classroom, especially post-pandemic and post-tragedy. I have less of an issue in my classroom because I teach a very socially interactive course (Theatre) that doesn’t really allow for it based on the pace and socially-driven activities of class. While I agree in general that phones can be inappropriate in a school setting (if used outside of the many educational tools employed by effective teachers), our school would never in a million years take a kid’s phone based on our experience with tragedy. But had we banned phones prior to the shooting, things could have been way worse. It was our real-time communication in a horrific time of need (for both students and teachers/administrators alike).
Elementary and middle--definitely. High school--I have a hard time with this. Educationally, they should be banned. But part of the job is helping them transition to college and the workplace where they will need to fit within professional norms. I think there is some value in allowing them to practice those norms in 11th-12th grade. I teach honors seniors and do allow phone use during independent work. Inappropriate phone use gets pointed looks and correction and eventually a phone ban. I also tell them that I don't write letters of recommendation for people who are often tardy, late with work, or on their phones.
I'm so happy Jonathan Haidt is making the rounds; I'm hoping that his important message gets heard by as many folks as possible. I really appreciate how calmly he provides information while offering solutions without sounding all "kids today, amirite?”
Thank's for that podcast! Really an existential topic, in my opinion. What we do to our kids at the moment is really monstrous, and I'm so glad we are starting to realize this.
Reading through these comments further establishes the guy is right and people’s inability to take criticism or be resilient is destroying our society.
As a HS teacher, the pushback is from the parents. They want to be able to reach their kids in case of a campus shooter. I guess they think a phone will be a benefit rather than a liability in that situation…
I have very little patience with your guest today. He’s conjecturing about groups that he does not belong to. His time was the 1980s, not the 2010s! I find him absolutely unbelievable. His idea for a short story about a politician with a young girl is grotesque and perverted. How did this man make the cut for an interview?
Evidenced based research is not conjecture. Why would he need to belong to a group? You don't need to be a child to research them, just like you don't need to be a man to research men. What an odd statement. Why is his research invalid because of his age? Politicians with young girls? What are you even talking about? 😂
Happy day!! I have been waiting for these two guys named Jon to converse for a long while. As a MH professional, I had a front row seat to the seismic collapse of young people's mental health in the mid 2010's. Prof. Haidt is hands down the most important public intellectual of our day. He brings the research, connects the dots and offers interventions that will improve lives. His predictions about the potential collapse of the U.S. liberal democracy are prescient and sobering. He ends with optimism that we are waking up to these problems. I only hope it is not too late. Fantastic interview!!
Offline used to be my favorite show of the week but what is with these guests. Just go back to "can Jon use his phone a normal amount" please, these interviews are terrible
Haidt's fine, this is fine. The stuff he says here needs to be the starting point of a deeper discussion, though, and I can already see the gleam in some Congressional eyes of the legislation they're about to advance based on the way the author confidently reinforces their biases.
No one talks about the death of the mall and social Spaces for youths. I understand that this is “offline” but come on there’s more than one angel. Smartphones aren’t the only boogie man.
Overall I agree with this guy. But the effect of violent video games is often overstated, and he unfortunately falls into this common trap. Violent games predominantly cause a desensitisation to real world violence, but they haven't been shown to increase violent behavior, aside from short term increases to aggression. And while many video games rely on addictive mechanics that produce continuous dopamine drips, violent games are mostly first person shooters which require challenging problem solving using line of sight tactical mechanics that more often result in failure than reward. Theres also breaks in thr action when a player dies, which interupts any dopamine reward, or you die and have to watch the rest of the players finish the map and wait even longer for a reward. All this said, violent games do have addictive mechanics, as do RPGs. But mostly they are fun! Which is distinct from rapid dopamine drip games. Many men will play golf every week for hours. Most people will watch television daily for hours. Just because it's enjoyable and habit forming doesn't make it dopamine sapping. Mobile games like Candy Crush are the slot machine like games that truly sap dopamine, whereas shooters are more akin to swinging a baseball bat and missing the ball more than you hit it.
"Kids should not be worrying about the War in Ukraine" Is such a removed perspective from the realities of the childhood developmental experiences of many; what we should focus on is developing enriching environments that help reduce the local affects of ACEs, but we shouldn't be so desensitized from our reality that we allow people to delude themselves into the multigenerational pattern of American exceptionalism. and this is an issue that specifically talks about the privileges of white, straight, and able-bodied peoples; kids who are chronically ill or have disabilities at a young age learn and are aware of many aspects of their mortality from the start, and it's humbling and educational to their friend groups for them to be able to share those experiences with others. For queer kids, growing up in the US w/o access to online spaces has been a death sentence for many since they are often stuck in heteronormative spaces w/o any public access to queer knowledge, history, and culture. Cutting young people off from digital citizenship directly affects their media literacy and sponsorship of understand complex topics as they grow up. Perhaps as a society, we should demand more of a responsibility towards digital citizenry, and the platforms that profit from the exploitation of those affinity spaces online. As for children of color-- and especially Black and Indigenous children-- we don't get to live lives or raise families that are unaware of the traumatic histories that exist in this country, that have pertained to our families; there is still a high risk of racial violence experiences in schooling age, even from other students and faculty. When I hear "these kids don't need to be worrying about the war in Ukraine", it evokes the same arguments as "these kids don't need to be worried/confused/know about the Holocaust/Civil Rights/Black Lives Matter/Indian Genocide". It's a privilege to not have to feel like that's important for your kids to understand and be aware of. Furthermore, this is a war our taxpayer dollars are going to, and so we have an ethical responsibility to that awareness-- it would be wrong of the US to hide WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf Wars from kids, and it was very wrong in the last generation for adults to hide the truths of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from us then too-- especially because recruitment for the military starts in high school. In fact, post-9/11 kids will note that we were heavily indoctrinated with pro-American propaganda throughout our time in school, and most history classes omitted the current events of the time. It is necessary that people be aware of conflict in the world. Best we can do it work to try and address trauma-inducing media (e.g., removing images of gore/explicit violence), but we are left with platforms of people who feel there is incentive and even moral reasoning to allow for violence to be presented on social media due to extremely high levels of institutional distrust, both with government and media.
and also, I should note that I am a member of GenZ in my 20s. I remember the age before social media was a wild west for many growing up, but in my generation, we also have seen a reorganization of spaces online that has been made safer in some ways, but we are still battling a cultural battle against tech companies who feel they are entitled to profit-motivated practices of allowing disinformation/media content to be spread on their platforms; who continue to allow bad-faith actors to exist on their platforms in accordance with the legal reality of "freedom of speech" while simultaneously breeching that defense whenever they use a profit model that financially benefits a conservative-leaning "marketplace of ideas". As a queer indigenous youth, I was exposed to an immense amount of hate speech in those spaces early on in social media (2005-2012), and oftentimes in good-faith communities, many young people were recruited to act as moderators for chat rooms, forums, blogs, wikis, games, etc. and we were exposed to inappropriate things, yes. But the tools got better, people became more socialized as the public education continued to improve alongside the innovating tech that was becoming available. People were exposed to many of horrific things because there was little accountability for the platforms (that benefit from anonymity), etc. But I also learned about pansexuality from a good-faith person in my online community just as I was coming into my own queerness; I learned to operate around the rhetoric of Gamergate at the time it was happening, and learned later of common concepts of how alt-right rhetoric spread in online spaces (e.g., "the Pewdiepipeline"/alt-right playbook); and Wikipedia, while it was damned as an academic source by all the adults in the room, it has now become one of the most useful tools for accessing information and public knowledge on the internet, and is curated by many editors. These systems are not perfect, and exist in the context of the many broken and imperfect institutions that founded them, but as time goes on, the existence of people in online spaces has revolutionized the ways we live and interact, and has made the world far more accessible for marginalzied peoples that are seeking to connect with others. We can't ignore that it exists, and it would be censorship for many marginalized peoples that rely on these systems, even if they are not viewed as 100% safe to policymakers. I think policymakers should more at the failures of their institutions' own failures to uphold the promises and policies that do exist fore indigenous, queer, and disabled peoples, and see if it really is good-faith effort to impose their political wills towards imperfect systems without developing alternative solutions to the total sum of it.
