I sat down with social psychologist and NYU professor Jonathan Haidt to discuss his new book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness”. Haidt has been conducting leading research on the effects of Gen Z’s smartphone-based childhood and has proposed four norms to potentially shift future generations’ relationship with this technology.

While I generally agree with his four norms, I believe the age to make a social media account should be 14 alongside when he proposes teens get a smartphone. If age 16, I think it could cause weird social dynamics between upper and lower classmen in high school. Additionally, I believe the design of these platforms needs to change for kids and teens by enforcing no public metrics, disincentivizing push notifications, and so on. I would also love for him to include more about how parents should let their children be the ones to kickstart and control their digital footprint when they want to around that age or older. We didn’t have time to cover these topics this time around.For more on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFAxEDRI58E

Chapters

0:00 - Haidt’s current mission

04:39 - Zuckerberg denying the link between social media and poor mental health

08:25 - How data is reported for mental health studies

11:29 - Our relationship with social media being complicated

13:24 - Media mind-warp vs Clinical mental illness

19:27 - Ages 10-13 being particularly vulnerable 

23:02 - Haidt against deeming the digital world as part of the “real world”

27:53 - Young people becoming brand managers

29:35 - Can humans evolve to handle the digital world as a norm

36:20 - Haidt’s four reforms

40:57 - Parents overprotecting in the real world and under-protecting in the digital world

45:56 - The education system’s role 

49:08 - Jules reflects on growing up online

50:59 - Haidt reiterates his mission

52:49 - Haidt questions Jules 

54:45 - How to make being alone a positive thing

56:37 - Outro

You can find more from "Fishbowl with Jules Terpak" on

https://www.youtube.com/@fishbowlpod

https://www.instagram.com/fishbowlpod

https://www.tiktok.com/@fishbowlpod

You can find Jonathan on

https://twitter.com/JonHaidt

https://www.instagram.com/jonathanhaidt

https://www.youtube.com/@JonathanHaidt1

To read "The Anxious Generation": https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593655036?linkCode=spc&tag=onamzjulester-20&creativeASIN=0593655036&asc_item-id=amzn1.ideas.1HHHY9CZRN3MJ&ref_=aip_sf_list_spv_ons_mixed_d_asin

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Intro animation by Chad Lynn: https://www.chadlynn.com/

You can also find me on

Twitter: https://twitter.com/julesterpak

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Text versions of my videos: https://www.growingdigital.net/

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