How To Free The Anxious Generation: Jonathan Haidt

By Neenah Payne

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist at NYU Stern School of Business and writes at the After Babel Substack. He is a co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, and the author of The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

Haidt’s articles can be found on The Atlantic. He explains that the introduction of the cellphone has led to the dumbing down of this new generation as well as increase in mental illness for girls. In the second video below, Haidt explains how social media is destroying our universities, democracy, and nation. He issues and urgent call for reforms.

See Projectliberty.io

30% Of Girls Have Mental illness | Joe Rogan & Jon Haidt

Why Free Speech Is So Important

In the video below, Haidt discusses his May 2022 article in The Atlantic “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid It’s not just a phase”.

“Uniquely Stupid:” Dissecting the Past Decade of American Life 4/18/22

In the decade since Facebook went public, social media platforms have transformed American society. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt speaks with Hari Sreenivasan about what went wrong and how social media could become less corrosive.

Haidt raises perhaps THE key issue of this era – the importance of free speech. Haidt points out that it’s important to have multiple perspectives. However, starting in 2014/2015, it became much more hazardous to question “the consensus” on any topic even in universities. Fear of intimidation made many people self-censor and go silent.

Haidt explains, “When critics go silent, the group gets stupid”. Haidt explains that when moderates go silent, that leads to the stupidity of our institutions and undermines our democracy. Haidt warns that if we don’t correct this problem, we face a lot more political violence and instability.

Haidt says we risk failing as a country unless we implement the following three reforms:

Harden democratic institutions
Change social media so it is less toxic
Allow children to grow up so they can better handle this crazy revised democracy

Haidt says, “We have over protected our kids in the real world and under protected them online.” He advises people to go to the site Leading the Movement for Childhood Independence. Haidt points out that there is a lot individuals can do that he wishes he had included in his article. He suggests that we all be more compassionate and tolerant of others’ opinions.

Four Norms To Protect Kids From Social Media

Jonathan Haidt’s Four Norms To Protect Kids From Social Media

In his new book, “The Anxious Generation,” Jonathan Haidt explores how social media and smartphones collided with emerging cultural norms to create the perfect storm for a mental health crisis experienced across a generation.

He sat down with Noema to discuss what he learned researching the book, what actions parents, teachers or students can take to combat the crisis, and how we can move forward in a world filled with increasing technological risks from AI. Read the interview here: https://www.noemamag.com/social-media…

Haidt proposes establishing the following four norms to help free teenagers from cell phones. The goal is to roll back phone-based childhood and restore play-based childhood. He has found that teenagers are happy to give up their cell phones if others are also doing so.

No smart phones before high school (use flip phones)
No social media until age 16 (the current limit is age 13)
Phone-free schools
More free play in the real world

The Anxious Generation

From New York Times bestselling co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, an essential investigation into the collapse in youth mental health—and a scientifically proven path to health and strength.

There is no bigger public health story now than the collapse in youth mental health. The numbers are terrifying and dominate our headlines. There has been much debate over how we got here, and what to do next, and bestselling author and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt is at the white-hot center of that discourse. Haidt has spent his career speaking wisdom and truth into the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the perfect storm contributing to a public health emergency for Gen Z.

For the cohort that hit puberty around 2009, their sense of self developed as the threads of three dramatic technological and social changes smartphones and life with the constant companionship of a screen, front-facing cameras and the bevy of apps that thrived on selfie-culture, and social networks that reduced engagement and affirmation to likes and hearts alone. But phones aren’t the only villain here; the ground for this crisis was seeded by a decades long shift from play-based childhoods to ones defined by over-supervision, structure, and fear.

The Anxious Generation is a penetrating and alarming accounting of how we adults began to overprotect children in the real world while giving essentially no protection in the brutal online world. Haidt documents the four fundamental harms of the phone-based sleep deprivation, social deprivation, cognitive fragmentation, and addiction. He then shows the unique harms affecting boys, and the unique harms affecting girls.

In the last section of The Anxious Generation , he offers concrete and scientifically based advice with separate chapters addressed to parents, schools, universities, governments, and to teens themselves. He draws on ancient wisdom and modern psychology to help everyone understand what healthy development would look like in the digital age.

England Bans Cell Phones in Schools

Schools in England given new guidance on stopping phone use 2/19/24
One of England’s biggest school academy trusts to ban phone use 9/13/24
UK’s only screen-free school: no phones, no iPads (but top results) 9/15/24
England Pushes for Cellphone Bans in Schools. Could the U.S. Be Next? 10/16/23
The US needs to follow England’s lead and ban cell phones from schools 10/3/23
Academy chain with 35,000 pupils to be first in England to go phone-free 9/13/24

Joe Rogan #2121: The Anxious Generation

In his talk with Joe Rogan below, Haidt refers to the 2023 book The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All―But There Is a Solution which offers concrete steps toward reclaiming a free-speech culture, with materials specifically tailored for parents, teachers, business leaders, and everyone who uses social media. As solutions to the problems he discusses,

Haidt points out that he founded the Heterodox Academy and The Constructive Dialogue Institute which has program called “Perspectives” a program designed to teach college students the mindsets and skills that they need to engage in constructive dialogue which is being used in 50 universities now. Haidt refers to his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion which was a NYTimes best-seller.

Haidt says we are at a Tipping Point now. Britain has mandated phone-free schools. He says he’s starting a national movement for parents to implement the four norms. He said by September when schools starts in the Fall, he expects a new environment.

Joe Rogan Experience #2121 – Jonathan Haidt 3/19/24

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist, professor, and author. His latest book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness available March 26

Joe Rogan #1221: John Stuart Mill on Free Speech

Haidt explains in his talk with Rogan below that in 2019 that the culture had not changed much in most of the 4,500 American institutes of higher education. It is the top liberal arts colleges in the North East on the East Coast and some universities in California and Chicago that have gone Woke in their obsession with DEI. He discusses his 2019 book The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure which is s NYT best-seller.

Haidt points out that John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays is one of the most important books in the Western tradition. Chapter 2 is the best set of arguments ever made for free speech – for why it is that we need to let people talk and challenge and criticize. Even if we think they’re wrong, we get smarter from having to rebut them. Whereas, if we shut them down – if we have blasphemy laws — we get dumber because we never actually face tests of what we believe.

So, this set of arguments in Chapter 2 of On Liberty is timeless! Mill anticipated every argument that we hear now about why we need to shut that person down and not let that person talk.

Haidt discusses the booklet he created from Chapter 2 called All Minus One: John Stuart Mill’s Ideas on Free Speech. Haidt said, “Read this book and then seek out your opponents. Seek out your critics. Seek out the people who can do for you what you can’t do for yourself to challenge your ideas.”

The 46-page PDF is free.

Joe Rogan Experience #1221 – Jonathan Haidt 1/7/19

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He’s also the author of books such as “The Happiness Hypothesis” and “The Coddling of the American Mind”.