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To me, it’s like when you take your new puppy to a dog park to get him/her socialized to other dogs. Many of them will be “random weirdo” dogs, as you say, but there’s value in getting young critters (& kids) acclimated to random weirdos so they aren’t scared of them & therefore react w/ aggression!
Agree. The way that I think of it is like there's a lot of "NPCs" in the comment sections of every social media app out there. They can share insane opinions about something and can turn perspectives into a toxic thoughts for people. In real life, you normally stay away from those people. But in social media indeed, it feels like you can't get away by those literal random strangers or worse, random weirdos everytime you open the apps.
@@DeeEllEffI agree with you to some extent. But comparing human children to dogs, is extremely weird. Assuming the parents would raise their children correctly, the kid would automatically know when a situation or person is off. Yes, again, dogs know that to some extent, but not to the extent that humans do. Again, comparing young kids to a dog is extremely weird.
@@DeeEllEffAlso, kids SHOULD be scared of “random weirdos.” That’s how they get their fight or flight response. You wouldn’t act out of aggression in a “weird” situation if you weren’t scared.
It's wild he didn't once discuss city design. Many kids aren't given the freedom to do anything outside of their homes because they are gridlocked. When my parents were young they could walk or bike to school, stores, their after-school jobs, and places to meet their friends. When I was young, the only way I could go anywhere was to ask my parents to drive me as there were no other options. No wonder I spent so much time online because there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. We designed cities without gathering places or mobility without a car so what do you expect children to do instead of rotting online? Good luck getting free play and independence in a suburb with no sidewalks. Dr. Mike needs to put out an urban planning episode.
It's especially an issue in America. In Europe, kids travel everywhere quickly and reliably via public transportation. The car-centric infrastructure in the US would makes it very hard to address this issue.
The actual problem is that in many US cities, safety is on the same level as in any random third world banana republic. Otherwise, children could walk or use a bike (they would be less obese), or use public transport.
@@Parrot5884 Well , There is a true story of a five-year-old driving on the highway off to the dealership to buy a Lamborghini. 😃, I just remembered that story when you said its not supposed to be literal 😀
As an older gen z who was allowed social media access as soon as I was 13 I agree so much with all these points. For so long i didnt even realize i did it but i often dont let myself have moments of silence hardly ever. Even when I’m reading a book i’ll put a youtube vid on in the background. When cleaning im listening to a podcast, walking to work, driving, anything really. I always have some sort of background stimulus rather than living in the moment :/ It wasn’t until recently when I was able to get back into spirituality and faith that I started noticing how drastic this problem is. Im grateful for my faith since its helped me to see the world differently but i still struggle with the effects of having my youth/puberty surrounded by social media and phones
Putting on a RUclips video in the background while reading a book is WIIIILD. But yeah it's sad that nowadays our minds are constantly needing stimuli. It really takes away from the beauty of silence or being able to explore our own thoughts regularly
I also find youtube in the background helpful. I can't tell if its the big scary evil algorithm using me or just the noise of people which makes it enjoyable (I'm an only child so life is quite quiet).
I just finished my 19th year of teaching middle school and high school. I started to be concerned about 10 years ago. There was a notable shift in behavior and mental health. I've noticed another shift over the last three years, and I'm no longer concerned. I'm distressed.
I am grateful to social media for one thing: The ability to find channel's like this one, with thoughtful highly trained experts. Great conversation with Dr. Haidt. Everything he says makes so much sense.
You say that as if 16 year olds have the maturity and intelligence to make proper use of the internet. Some do, and those few would probably have been able to handle it at almost any age. It's how they operate. Most 16 year olds I think are more likely than not to run into trouble online.
@@imthinkingthoughts I think we are very different from the younger half of our generation. I have cousins that are young gen z and they are so antisocial and lack so much social skills that it's unbelievable. They always sit with their phones glued to their face and barely says hello when we visit.
@@DILFDylF Good point, I think the main difference is that as kids start to reach their mid-teens, they have a greater capacity for understanding internet safety. I was fortunate enough to have parents and educators that taught me a lot about managing myself and my interactions on the internet and to always check sources, etc. The combination of age and maturity makes all the difference.
I am Gen z(1998)... I didn't get a smart phone till I was in college. The best thing that could have happened to me. I don't want to imagine a me that started on social media and smart phones when I was 13 or somewhere around there
As a Gen Z myself I can't be more grateful that my parents restricted the internet for me as a child and teen. I had a "dumb phone" (one of those slider phones) from 13 until I was 15, and a smartphone with restricted internet access with no social media until I was 18. I was still able to talk with friends and plan hangouts without the toxicity of social media. Guess what? I still made lots of friends without social media and arguably created much closer and long lasting friendships without it. As an adult my closest friends don't spend their time on social media, and it has made for very meaningful and close relationships in my life. I really hope if I have children someday, I can be part of the movement to keep children off social media. Like Dr. Haidt said in the video, if half of parents restricted access kids would be able to find a group to socialize with.
My oldest daughter is 10 and I can’t believe how many kids in her class have smart phones and are allowed to use social media. I don’t use anything other than RUclips and that has actually helped because my daughter doesn’t see me on social media all the time. She also knows there’s no way in hell she’s getting a cell phone any time soon lol I’m actually going to be homeschooling her this year and from here on out because of how bad school has gotten already with the introduction to young kids using social media. Restrictions are in place for kids for VERY GOOD reasons. And parents need to start recognizing those reasons and step up to keep our kids safe. It’s also insane how illiterate kids have become because they’re not reading books anymore. Kids graduating high school with barely a 4th grade reading level. Something’s gotta give with social media because it’s only getting worse.
All I know is: Smartphones ruined a lot for us. The internet and social media used to be something that we could only access by going to a room in the house that had a computer. Now we can access the internet and social media anywhere at anytime and that is so unhealthy.
As with anything, there are upsides and downsides. Yes, some people find it harder to stay in control when they basically have the internet in their pocket, but it's also a huge boon for those who find comfort in talking to peers wherever they are. Smartphones are not inherently healthy or unhealthy.
It is harmful in a way, and there is always a trade-off for civilization. Before cars, the concept of dying from high speed collisions was foreign. Despite the new risk, humans still found it worth it and adopted to it, with safer designs, legal enforcements, and training. The same could be said about technology and social media.
@@Gn3rd If only more people were more nuanced like you. I've come to realise nuance is quite rare compared to what my naive but more hopeful younger self presumed hahaha
Parenting goes downhill when you need both parents working all of the time just to get by. There’s bad parents, sure, but there’s plenty that just barely get by.
It's not necessarily just a lack of parenting. It's the fact that parents right now are super out of their element. My parents managed to keep me and two of my siblings (2000-2005) safe just fine. But my 2009 sibling? My parents did everything they could and more. None of it has worked. It's a completely new and terrifying situation. While some parents are probably just negligent, many parents are trying their hardest and failing.
While there are a lot of negatives to unrestricted access to the internet, I'm thankful that I had it growing up. There's so much misinformation that I would have believed if I only had my family and friends at school to ask.
@@unlistedandtwisted It's southern US so yes, lot's of book banning going on. Besides that though, no one is going to a library to research every minor question they have.
i was born in 2000 and am now a parent myself and this conversation is something my peers have been trying to cope with since we were teens. thank you for addressing older members of gen z specifically, i feel often this conversation focuses on young gen z and gen alpha, and we are forgotten about
i am a teenager, and its absolutely insane to see just how addicted some of the kids my age are to their phones. they either have no social skills and dont take initiative in group projects, or they have the craziest ego/attitude
That's a good observation....and you're right.....also, as I'm sure you noticed, MOST of the content is shallow/superficial......there's almost no real personality, no brains and no talent for MOST of the "influencers"..... At least when I was a kid, MOST of the celebrities were specifically talented or brilliant....
As a early gen Z (2001), what I noticed the most is the change from neighbourhood friendgroups to watching online personalities or engaging in online interaction without significant social connection in the last 14 years, especially during and after lockdown. I need to and love to learn (in videos, studies, undergradepapers, documenteries or books in ecology, paleontology, health, psycology and anthropology), and the internet can satisfy that need, but as a human I need to socialize to live and the internet/social media doesn't satisfy that need.
I see him more like a liver... same train of thought but there's only one of him and we better not be abusive cuz if he's gone we're all gonners because he is far less "easily ;)" replaced.
No IG, tik tok, FB, X or anything. I'm dead to the world. I stopped comparing myself to others and started living for myself. I also don't worry about when I'm applying to jobs or if someone is looking for me, what they are going to find.
@shawnshurtz9147 that's not social media. I'm not sharing content. I watch RUclips instead of tv. It keeps me in touch with what's going on with social media but putting your life out there is different.
@@shawnshurtz9147 I'm on YT too. I had an old friend email me because there's no other way to reach me online. You can't exactly reach out to each other here unless you're posting stuff to comment on. It's not the same.
From last time he was on I turned off notifications to most apps. I am a millennial mom of almost a teen. This has given me confidence in my decision to limit screen time and not allow social media. Great conversation Dr Mike 👍🏻
I’m older gen-z: I think social media has made my 20’s crisis so much worse. This is where I’m really feeling the comparison when I watch my friends on social media get engaged, get married, have kids, buy houses,etc. When I’m on the socials, the depression and anxiety is astronomical for me. I’ve had to cut way down on it. Edit: 59:28 when I am dealing with a mental health problem like anxiety, what I really want is someone to help me get a game plan where I can at least do something about it. But because a lot of my anxiety is social media caused or touch starvation, older people (even professionals) can’t really help so much of the time. They just don’t have the skills and experience either since it’s all still so new for everyone.
That's not a Gen z issue, that's everyone's issue. Only a few lucky ones find a mentor. Most do not ever find one. But since you can clearly articulate and have figured out that's what you want and need, you'll be at a better chance of finding one. In the meantime, read books about life advice.
@@argoneonoble Absolutely the 20’s is a time where everyone is at different stages of life so in that regard it’s totally normal. But other generations have not had other people’s life stages thrown in their faces nearly every second of the day just because of the amount of exposure via social media. Other generations had that 20’s crisis, but it was also easier to disconnect because it wasn’t every moment of every day. Hope that makes sense. I can’t prove it for a fact, but it is a feeling I get after talking with my older relatives about their 20’s :)
@@homosapien6031 Hitting the cusp of 1996. That’s the official cutoff year between millennial and gen-z so older would mean mid to late twenties. Maybe the early twenties depending who you talk to
As much people love demonizing young peoples usage of social media, they really don't talk about the reason why social media has become such a prevalent thing among young people especially kids and teens. One of the reasons is lack of third places. Where can kids hangout? Where they can have their own space. Also, social media can be a huge saviour if you're a part of a marginalized community. For example you're queer and/or black. Or if you can't manage to get friends from school or from after school activities, hobbies. Social media has also been a way to get irl friends and communities. As a teen girl, yes I got a bunch of grown men asking me for nudes or sexting me. But at the same time, I got to connect with other teen girls about various of things and talk to someone who can relate to you. The positive experiences of social media outweighs the negative ones that I experienced.
I'm not a teenager, but I 100% agree! I too found people who think like me in socal media. Social media brings people together to share ideas and become (an online) community when IRL there's no one or just very few people around to share your ideas with.
Great points. Public-facing conclusions are biased in favor of practicality. It’s easier to advocate for something straightforward like no-phone schools than it is to encourage the creation of more third places. That being said, a big part of his book also discusses giving kids more freedoms in the real world. They’ll play on the street, out in the woods, etc.
@@mncheng I was speaking as someone who lived in a rural suburban area. That was extremely white and extremely straight. I lived in a childcare home and adults trusted me a lot, so I had a lot of freedom per se. But I didn't use that freedom much because I didn't manage to get friends from school or from the home. There were other teens my age that managed to become the type of friends that hang out in the center, usually in busstations or parks during the summer but there are no spaces during the winter. Isolating children from the internet is not going to guarantee that they are going to be more social in real life. I haven't read his book. But I feel like I can get better analysis about this from someone else.
Exactly! Disabled and chronically ill communities also need opportunities to connect safely! Condemning social media completely ignores how it benefits people who are isolated
as someone who was born in 1999, i DID experience a lot of outdoor play but that's because my parents were very weary about giving us phones as kids, so now all of my friends find it strange that i don't check my phone often and don't look at social media, texts, or missed calls as often as they do (unless it is about work of course). most of my personality comes from my culture and my nature. i think that the biggest influence that my generation has had on my personality is connected to my understanding of topics like politics, philosophy, and mental health. my siblings and i have much more knowledge and empathy about these topics than my parents and i think that having access to media in our late teens helped with that, however now there's a huge disconnect between our view points and out parents' and it's near impossible to close that gap.
I'm also curious to know about how mental health awareness in this generation has probably been the reason for the increase in these statistics vs in previous generations when people couldn't really identify if they were experiencing depression and anxiety or weren't comfortable enough to come forward. Does anyone know of any studies on this aspect? Obviously, I still do think our generation does experience more anxiety and depression more so than the previous, but i want to know if it's grown exponentially or if the statistics are more inflated due to increased awareness and acceptance.
Might be both being combined. Self reporting increases as self reporting is easier. So it could be institutional and social at the same time. You must then first identify the timing of all this and trends of creation of avenues to self report.
Did you not watch the video? Dr. Haidt clearly lays out that there was a sudden explosion in mental health issues in 2012. Do you really think it's plausible that for some unknown reason, everyone collectively became aware of mental health suddenly in 2012? Or is it because 2012 was the year facebook bought instagram, converted it to facebook's predatory algorithm, and started marketing it to teenagers?
Dr Haidt touches on this point often, his counter argument is that the number hospitalisations for self harming behaviours/sucide attempts have also increased (and the age of those admitted started dropping), which is not self reported data.
I remember when DR Mike said he wanted to bring MR Jonathan on his podcast because he liked his book and was trying his best to bring him on the show! Glad that happened, Great topic to pick up for a podcast!
I was born in 1999, didn’t have a lot of these issues. But I did grow up in a lower income strict household so I didn’t see social media until I was in my later teens and definitely didn’t have an iPhone at 13. Greatful for that now!
I'm a high school math teacher. I've been teaching since 2016. I jokingly tell people that teaching in 2024 is like having front row tickets to the end of the world, but it's becoming less of a joke each year. The problem is Social Media as a whole, but specifically TikTok and Facebook. The cell phones are a huge problem. It's the single worst invention in the history of humanity.
Absolutely a good conversation about mental health and social media. One we need to be having much more. I do think Dr. Haidt missed the mark when he started going down the rabbit hole on gender roles and gender predispositions though.
This podcast has been so fascinating to listen to... I was born in 1997 so I am elder Gen Z. If I could go back and live my teen years without the internet, I would. It harmed me in so many ways I'm embarrassed to admit, having access to literally anything a dark teenage mind could fathom, and parents being totally none the wiser. I was severely depressed and was exposed to all sorts of stuff I shudder to think about now, and I can see the ways it damaged me as I developed through a really important time. Thankfully I have always been an active person, and quite sociable, so I grew out of it as I changed routines and got myself out and about more, but I really worry for these introverted kids that seem to be able to spend a full 24hrs looking at a screen. I'm interested that connection to nature didn't feature in this at all, this is what I feel saved me from the worst continuing effects of my 'online puberty'. It has been proven the world over that time in nature boosts mental and physical wellbeing, and inherently gets people off of their phones- and posting to social media that you're out and about having fun can inspire others to do the same. Particularly fascinating that Dr Haidt thinks it's impossible to survive without uber! Forget that public transport is better for the environment? I love how most of my social media algorithms now gear towards ecology, wellness and learning about awesome stuff in nature, it constantly inspires me to learn more and explore new places. I use my phone often on walks to identify species, and I'll post to groups on social media to share what I've found. These groups can also be extremely vital as a source of citizen science as well, which is a vital component on conservation, here in the UK.
👏👏FACTS ON THE REVIEWS!!!! ITS VERY TOXIC FOR OUR SOCIETY!!! JUST AS BAD AS SOCIAL MEDIA!!! I had a business I closed because of the mental stress and pressure of reviews. I had a 4.9 rating but I was always so stressed trying to be perfect and lost a lot of money! Thank you for your good work Dr Mike!!!!💜💜💜
This is excellent conversation and presentation. I work in academia and have experienced first hand the decline in functional and proactive thinking from 18-19 year old students that I had attributed to pandemic high school/middle school lockdown fallout, but now I can see the longer term problem in the years that Dr. Haidt noted (post smartphones 2010 and post insta 2012). And here we are ... Thank you for this robust and thought-provoking content.
I'm at the 54:21 mark and I guess I did childhood wrong because my favourite tv show as a kid was Transformers. It's an unfortunate bias but good on Dr. Mike for pushing back because little girls are absolutely socialized towards homemaking and caregiving. I know Labour isn't Dr. Haidt's speciality but he might want to search "pink collar ghettos". Autobots, roll out
Thanks for the timestamp came here from the short I wish mike pushed back on that abit more to get a proper dialogue in that cuase thebtoy isle example specificaly is quite the horrid example
At 10:18 ~ish still so may return with more reflections :p But wanted to note how those ancient societies hunter gatherer societies didn't necessarily divide labor in the way people originally thought. Newer research has found that tasks (eg. hunting vs gathering) were not divided by gender in the ancient times. If you look at the relatively more recent ancient cultures, again, there were many who did not divide labor or society in the way now considered 'traditional'. Just wanted to mention. It's important to note these gendered divisions often framed or seen as 'natural'/'inherent', are fundamentally not so.
Update: Got to that part, and ye There isn't rly a fundamental difference like that. The 'gendered trend' is all socialization. This kind of discussion is what contributes to it. Any 'difference' like that is individual based. Afab ppl who by nature are more practical focused learn to focus on relationships because it's treated as shameful and wrong to be the other way, And amab ppl get the same but inverse treatment.
Lmao, bit of a personal interest tangent, but, dang, any wonder then that Autistic afab ppl are chronically underdiagnosed when autistic brains generally are more logic (as opposed to emotion) focused :p Don't remember the exact wording, but recently found that and suddenly life made a bit more sense to me :p It was about order/priority of things that get processed/considered Where generally autistic brains go something like: Logic, Context, Emotion While neurotypical brains tend to go: Emotion, Context, Logic :p Very paraphrasing & simplified, but damn. Considering the influence of socialization, yeah no fukin wonder Autism was considered a "male disorder" for the longest time, and even now there is the "male brain theory" which in reality has again more to do with socialization and how people arbitrarily have assigned these traits to gender when they have no actual connection.
Dr. Mike, as a 44 year old Mom of a 5 year old, I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s when no one had phones, etc. This is a topic I struggle with when it comes to my daughter. When is appropriate for a phone, social media. (We know it will not be anytime soon). My husband and I are in complete agreement that we will avoid a phone and definitely social media for as long as humanly possible.
As a Gen Z who is turning 18 this year I would say give her a phone at like 13 and then social media can come at like 16 with screen time limits it probably won't be popular with her but it limits exposure to harmful things and she can self regulate better t 16 than at 13, at 13 it should mostly be for communication. Oh fyi that'sapproximately what I had, had a flip phone until I was 13 and mentally I would say I'm pretty fine and I can self regulate with social media, honestly mostly use my phone for communication.
Dr. Haidt outlines his recommendations in the book ("Anxious Generation"). PLEASE read it; as a teacher, his recommendations seem reasonable AND he also discusses the difficulties you might run into in implementing them as well as how to navigate those problems.
As a parent, I agree this is a super challenging question, especially since the context of when children get phones has changed. Middle school it seems to be the norm that kids have phones and are texting each otter (and i’m worried what ready access to Apple’s spell check will do to grammas). With my younger two, we’re planning to wait at least until middle school. Based on our experience with the older kids, built in parental controls are ineffective, and we’d prefer to wait longer but are also worried about causing social isolation if we’re the one family where you have to message the parents to hang out
@@taneelbrightblade6622can’t your child talk with his friends on a family ipad or computer? also, i would recommend an apple watch + airpods. he can make calls, listen to music but there’s no social media or web browsing. imessage can be used but it’s clunky on such a small screen so it becomes tiring soon, which discourages too much use.
This is fascinating, I've been trying to figure out why I struggle with social norms while my brothers are very "normal"well adjusted people. They were born 1980 and 1982, I was 1990. They had a child hood of riding bikes with friends, I early on was sequestered "safe" inside and on a computer by 10 years old and very much experienced puberty online. He's absolutely right that going through that developmental stage virtually I missed out on in person intuitive knowledge. I'm also an older parent now reaching my mid 30s with a toddler and been so confused by my generations kids. We're a generation habituated to being online raising kids who are even more so. We're feral cats raising another generation removed. It's fascinating to see this happening so fast and I wonder how society will shift with it
I'm 1991 and enjoyed both. At 1990 I'm surprised you didn't grow up similar to your brothers. I consider millennials as the last of the normal, integrated ones. That said I do notice the early 90s millenials are very disconnected and closer to Gen Z...but honestly all I remember was riding bikes, playing, socializing all while still playing video games and MySpace and Facebook in high school. It was a beautiful mix of both and socializing as men it was more expected of you back then a more normal life. It was a great mix of both. And I was shocked how much society changed in the years that followed.
Until he started talking about how boys and girls being interested in different things isn't because of culture but because of the *tiny* differences in our *brains*
@reyfin4922, @brittany4724 Are you debating facts? It's clear that while pointing out systematic biological differences between the two sexes, Dr. Haidt is as far as possible from attributing value differences to them.
I completely agree, i have anxiety and depresstion, and the internet often makes me feel awful, epecially the algarythem, not working properly and im getting horrible videos, or triggering content.
Turn them off. Shut off the algorithms. Don't engage in content. Turn off your history and save things you want to see into playlists. Avoid the open internet as much as possible.
As an elementary teacher, I am already seeing this new mindset in kids. They try something once and immediately declare "I can't do this, it's too hard" and give up. EDIT: We have to remember there are exceptions to the rule. There are kids out there that reject smart phones, social media, etc. These are the kids that will go on to do great things for future generations. But they are far fewer than they were before.
You might like to know this: the fingers we used to write with are controlled by the same part of the brain which is responsible for controlling instant gratification. By encouraging kids to use hand-writing, they are learning to make decisions (choosing the words they use on the page and FORMULATING them with a pen means they are deciding how things are going to be) and at the same time we are educating them to delay their satisfaction until they have finished a train of thought and a physical task in an organised way. All that is lost when kids use phones and only have to tap in an answer and can rely on spellcheckers, grammar checkers and AI. It literally dulls the brain and breeds kids who cannot exert any self-control.
Hey, I'm trying to be open to the fact that you see a lot of children on the regular and probably have a better grasp on what they're like on a large scale. At the same time, I've been around children and tried to teach them something new before, it's not uncommon for them to say those sorts of things. It's our job as the adults in their lives to help them come up with healthier mindsets and a healthy internal dialogue when they encounter challenges. Many adults carry the "this is too hard, I should give up" mentality with them their whole lives and then wonder why things aren't ever going their way and they end up feeling worthless and helpless. A vicious internal cycle. So, a kid might have an adult at home with the same attitude when challenged and they're just parroting it. It's not a "this generation" thing in my mind. It's an "any person can fall into that negative thinking pattern" kind of thing regardless of age. They need to be taught how to speak to themselves kindly, and what they can say to themselves to motivate them to keep going when it gets rough.
@@TechProducerOfPi 😅 you're welcome. It's become a personal pet peeve of my own, as well. I don't think we should be damning them. The kids of today will learn and grow, like we all did.
nonsense. I am a millenial and we said "i cant do it, its too hard" long before the Internet was around. I remember I threw my bicycle into the bushes because I couldnt ride it when my dad tried to reach me. Stop being such doomers, its pathetic, really. Instead of blaming children, be a better teacher.
I am 21 and my parents didn't allow me to get social media till senior year of highschool so I could connect with friends after college. Even tho I didn't start using it till after 18 years old and really didn't become addicted till the last two years I feel like it has caused a lot of damage for my brain and ability to focus and motivate myself to do tasks. I cant imagine how much worse of I would be if my parents let me get social media in middleschool.
I really enjoyed the conversation in this video and thought it brought out great perspectives! I’m a female, in my mid 20s, and in the tech field. I also sadly grew up in a cult so my experiences have been different when it comes to social media and being on the internet growing up. I will admit I got into a lot of trouble as a kid and I know that a lot of it was due to wanting attention since I was socially isolated from being in the cult. You weren’t really allowed to make friends outside the cult so this made navigating puberty and life 10 times harder. For a long time I was the only kid who didn’t have a phone in school and it was horrible since even teachers were expecting all kids to have phones by the time I was in middle school! Sometimes we needed them for class work which only elevated my stress. Eventually I grew out of it and got my phone but to this day I don’t keep notifications on for anything. I hate notifications and use very limited social media. I mostly just use discord and RUclips. I feel like I’ve never related to others as much who are my generation or younger since I’ve been isolated from the mainstream. I never joined the bandwagon and so I don’t have that same type of community feelings that I know some of my peers have. I’m curious how religious trauma can affect people’s ability to socialize since I think it has played a huge impact on my life.
Man, can I like this video more than once? It touches so many modern issues with interesting takes on them and high brow POVs and analysis. Great stuff
I actually feel so bad for kids that have been exposed to the unfiltered internet. Like seriously the stuff they be getting exposed to is WILD! And the internet is taking away kids’ social skills! They don’t play neighborhood games with the neighbor kids anymore and hardly any of them even know how to properly answer a phone call. It’s really sad, that kids these days (I hate saying kids these days it makes me feel old) don’t know how to socialize with real world people anymore… Also the fact that predators could find them too…..the internet is such a scary place
So greatful I was raised by a woman that knew women can be warriors as she was raised with all brothers who treated her as an equal not as a “only a woman” as you said. Women are every bit as capable as men. The even best of men came from women. We (individuals) are only as strong as we are as a whole society.
Women are every bit as valuable as men. When it comes to capacity they are definitely not nearly as capable in certain aspects, especially related to physical strength and athleticism. Same goes the other way around in other aspects.
I am in IT and had my kids in 2000 and 2001. I didn't get phones for my kids. Simple. Even when they were available, I just told them that they can get a phone when they can afford to pay for it. Not sure why people can't put limitations on their kids? My kids didn't die without a phone and are functional, contributing members of society. Oh and I spent my spare tim with my kids as well, reading to them and going to parks and out on fun days out when we could.
Same. My kids are 16 and 18, and the rule is they get phones when they NEED one. My eldest got hers when she went on a European trip at 17, and the sixteen year old will get one when she has a job and is driving. Otherwise they only get their tablets on the weekends. It's not hard to limit. Reasonable boundries are good for kids.
I was born in 1984 an early Millennial. I am happy that I have the ability to consciously choose what I want to keep on consuming online. Experienced how things have evolved in the social media spehere until I decided to stop as even before social media I know best not to compare yourself to others as it can ruin yourself. It has always me vs me.
As someone born in 01 I straight up cold turkied myself from phone use and I’ve never felt so clear minded and had so much happiness brought into my life over the little things than at any point in my life…sometimes we have to be our own guardians when people don’t consider the potential outcomes.
Just a minor point, but one thing I love about Haidt is that he actually acknowledges the way sex _matters_ , in a way that's anthropological rather than political. Throughout the interview, he draws attention to how trends effect men/boys and women/girls differently. All too often, you only see that when people are making politicised points (either pro-male or pro-female, depending on political world view), but he treats it more as though he's just acknowledging that humans are like most other mammals - we do have broad psychological/behavioural differences between sexes, that _are not_ just due to culture and politics (although where biology ends and culture begins is always going to be murky).
While I appreciate most of what was said, I truly think the section about societal pressures' influence/contribution (or lack thereof) to the social media damage to each gender is incorrect and dangerous. Saying that girls don't want to play with cars/trucks and boys don't want to take photos from birth isn't true. Kids aren't born with a color preference or a favorite type of toy. While some would gravitate to normal societal standards, most wouldn't if pressures from family (immediate or extended), teachers, babysitters, books, stores, TV shows and more weren't constantly bombarding them from day one. Also, social media influence includes the ever increasing ads, which DO often showcase companies' ideologies, if not the ideologies of their target demographics. This has been the case in some form or another throughout history, just evolving slowly as the money shifts, which requires the ADULTS in society to make the shift first. Why does social media have a much higher rate of effect on young girls? Because the algorithm and marketing teams target messages of beauty, thinness, quiet, artsy, weak, sparkles/pink, etc as well as "what happens if you don't" (no friends, less success, being ugly, being alone, etc) to girls (and for boys to see and expect from girls) from SUPER young. Boys, in contrast, get superheroes, monster trucks, power, strength, control, dominance, dark colors, and individuality (aka less pressure to conform and be perfect) aimed at them. Hormones and genetics DO play a role, but saying that gendered societal roles and expectations aren't a continuous significant factor is just not true. I do greatly appreciate the overall discussion here, as many extremely important and educational points were brought up. Thank you for bringing another fantastic guest and discussion to us.
I think you made an excellent point about companies appealing to parents' standards. Even if all they want is money, there are absolutely pathways for them to end up pushing ideas onto kids in order to get money
I also think this discussion was missing a huge rising trend, which is the social media influence on boys regarding "red pill" and other similar ideologies right now.
I'm kinda disappointed in Dr. Mike giving visibility to this person that clearly doesn't know much about gender studies and is advocating for patriarchal archetypes that damaged men and women's relationships for centuries. The entire part starting at 10:08 and on, where he states shows from the 30-50s were "good guides" for boys is problematic. Also, what's up with the "initiation rites" for males and females ? Separating men and women is exactly the one mistake that created all this tension between genders, and we're paying the price for that, more than ever, nowadays. Patriarchy is also the reason why depression and suicide rates are higher among men, it's not because minorities are calling sexism out (and yes, sexism is still responsible for the high rate of women being killed each day - it needs even more visibility and women sharing their experience and trauma). Also, it seems like this Doctor has some history when it comes to homphobia and sexism while teaching classes (I just looked it up online 'cause I trust my instincts - I guess this comes from experience when hearing similar speeches from other so-called intellectuals). This man is clearly not aligned with current times and I wouldn't take his point of view very seriously when it comes to relationships between genders. However, his analysis about smartphones and how addictive it is, is pretty on point (even though we're all aware of how problematic it is nowadays - it's not brand-new information).
Ugh thank you for saying this. Hearing this kind of rhetoric about what boys and girls “naturally” gravitate towards pisses me off, and to say that most careers are dominated by the sex that they are primarily due to innate biologically determined neurological reasons is quite incorrect and misinformed. I’m an engineering major and let me tell you, I didn’t even realize I *could* do engineering for all of my life till I got to college. But I realized it was an option for me and I’m in love with the major. Horrible to say that girls don’t end up in high paying well respected jobs because they aren’t “biologically tuned” for it. Bullshit.
It would be interesting to hear Dr. Haidt's stance on the 'virtual socialization' of adults who came before social technology-- the baby boomers and prior-- who are so prone to scams, to political radicalization, who think everything google tells them is divine decree, and also how that dichotomy interacts with their relationships with their technologically literate children and grandchildren
What a great conversation. I am in the middle of his book now and both enjoying it and worried about what I have have done. I will add that my 14 yr old son longs for the youth I had. Born in the early 1970's, most of my memorable youth was in the 80's and teen years in the 90's. We had so much time to mess up, do nothing, let our minds wonder, be creative and the pressure of life was so much less stress. It visibly angers my son that his friends would rather 'stay inside', play video games vs. being outside doing stupid nonsense. It's close to impossible to get them to just "hang-out" and have no where to go - or just be teens and hang at the mall. I do hope that there is a youth revolt against all of this so they can take their lives back because adults are not helping.
As a mother of 2 and I do want to have more. I really express the need for human to human connection. I am so glad and grateful for daycares, clubs, and programs. I will not let my kids have a phone until I believe it is very needed. But seeing this makes me want to do my best for my kids to not have this problem or to at least lessen it as much as possible.
As someone born in 1997, instead of guessing when generations end just ask the people and I can tell you I have a lot more in common with people older than people a year younger, I remember having this conversation in school as well and when at university. The year below acted so odd, they would sing viral songs from youtube videos and that was people from sept 1998 to sept 1999. That is eactly the generation change. Ask anyone born at that time and I can garentuee they will concur. The issue is for some reason researchers making up generations never actually ask the people they are claiming fit into a category
You don't just get to pick which generation you're in... it's fine to be outside the norms of your generation. Buuut if you don't like the "label" then you don't need to find another label you want more. Just be an individual.
@@DILFDylF generations are made up, but if they are going to make them up make sure they at least make sense. This isn't a me thing, I have never found anyone my age who thought they were gen z, until some researcher who arbitrarily picked a date said so. There is a visible difference, if they bothered to actually look instead of guessing.
54:35 drop the research please, I want to read it. Somehow I get the feeling that it didn't consider the social/culture pressures in genders and only considered the legal aspect of being "free".
What does "free" even mean in a social construct. anarchism could be considered "free " but i can't imagine that makes a good society. I also want to know what evidance he has that gendered choices aren't soical norms as that seems pretty wild
@@ZetsumeiIkari yeah, that's why I wanted to read that research what does "free" entail. I've only found an article talking about that research but not the research itself, I'm not really a good at looking for these things. Same he really took me by surprise with that one and I wish Dr Mike gave more push back or made Dr Jonathan elaborate more.
i was looking for this comment… like how can both guys just say that certain sexes prefer certain things?? when my little cousin (male) was younger he LOVED playing dolls with my cousin and i. sure enough once he turned 5ish he started telling us “no im a boy, boys don’t play dolls” likewise i was babysitting for this girl and i saw she had some toy cars. i asked if she wanted to race the cars (something i loved as a kid) and she replied “ew… no that’s for boys. i’m not a boy.” like how can we just ignore the societal aspect? both kids clearly wanted to play with these toys but society told them no because of their gender. i think dr. mike kinda flopped on this one by agreeing
Dr. Mike, this episode was enlightening! Dr. Haidt's insights on the harms of social media are thought-provoking. It's crucial to delve into these discussions to understand and address the complexities of our digital age. Looking forward to more insightful conversations like this!😊
just be aware its not perfect and can tell there is a right wing bias with that person causing him to avoid some topics and overgeneralize some issues that is harmful to some minorities
I liked that he did the example of people born in 1999 because he described exactly my case! I do think that often a lot of the fault is given to the kids saying “oh kids are on their phones all day” people should understand WHY they are on their phones. It’s addicting and of course parents are going to buy kids a phone because all of their friends have one. I often see situations in restaurants or public transport where parents give very little children a tablet to play instead of using other techniquew to calm them down, because it’s the easy way and I understand that it can be a difficult situations for parents, especially if people around don’t show any compassion for the parents, but I do think kids should he given a lot more opportunities of phone free activities because they will probably realize on their own that it’s much more rewarding than being on social media. So I also agree that a lot of change ahould come from early education on safe social media use but also from creating more opportunities for kids like they already said more recess time, more excercise, more time together etc.
I am a R.N. I am not allowed to get my nails done. I do enjoy a pedicure with the foot masks etc. I relaxed and closed my eyes. Every other Girl were hunched over looking at their phones.I am there to relax, especially after a hard week of work standing most of the time.
Absolutely! I'm a chatty Cathy and am always talking with the lady doing my service and seen to be the only one, the Ladies are usually surprised that I'm not on my phone, mind you I'm super addicted to my phone just starved for adult conversation as a stay at home mom😂
Is there a reason for the nails not being allowed? Usually nurses wear gloves so that covers your nail polish. You can still wash your hands and nails with polish.
@@PinkRose0910 It depends on the facility they work at. Each place is different. I had fake nails twice when I was part of the wedding party. Even if u double glove all the bacteria can get under them. I play the guitar so I am used to it. I love fake nails with all the designs and stuff If I go on vacation I can wear some. I have a Medical Assistant that has her nails on all the time. So pretty. little fake diamonds and fun colors. Also I wear Nursemate Clogs with padded soles. I don't wear sneakers. I take them off B4 I go in my house and wipe them down with Lysol wipes.I don't want to bring any stuff from blood to whatever else is on them.
@@fdiw That is cute. My friend Just had a baby. It changed her so much. You have to be alert all the time. Packing up baby stuff. You just need to have an adult convo and some time alone. Good for you. My friend thinks its a big deal when she can shower for 15 minutes.
Also, I would like to mention as a teen, when you don't listen to us, that's like giving us a large shove into social media. We don't want to come to you anymore.
That's understandable. I would like to suggest that there are always people (adults) who will listen to you, even if they're not your family. Counsellors, teachers, church people... There's always someone who will listen, you may have to reach out which may be uncomfortable but please don't feel like there aren't adults out there who can care for you in an emotional capacity. ❤
All I have to say is, if you think this is just a gen z experience, you haven't spoken to the online milenials that were on the PC and Internet from young ages. We saw all those horrific things and had predatory older men on young girls. Saying that as someone born in 89
I am almost 18 now. I find the social media debate really difficult sometimes because on the one hand, I am kind of addicted to social media. On the other, social media let me connect to people that I would have never met otherwise who were my friends in times where everyone outside of my phone considered me too weird to be friends with. I would've been incredibly lonely for a few years if it wasn't for social media. Social media was also the spot where I could experiment with my gender when I was unsure of whether I was trans or not, which has given me the confidence to come out. What I am saying is, yeah there are a lot of kids that get bullied in school that then also get bullied online. But I can't imagine that I am the only kid that was ever bullied/octrasized for which social media was a reliever that made me less lonely/sad.
I do agree to some extent but.... Every teenager I know has a smartphone and social media. I also see the downside of one teenager not having that. As a teacher I do see much bullying and excluding someone who doesn't have social media or even a smartphone. So isn't that damaging? A student of mine is really being bullied because of it and is very depressed, even suicidal. I don't think it is as easy as: take the phone/social media away because than other problems will come up. Kids/teenagers are horrible to each other.
Guarantee the kid doesn't have any hobbies or pursuits to give meaning to their life. I didn't have a phone at all until my freshman year of highschool and my first smartphone was going into my sophomore year. I didn't care because I had other interests. It didn't matter what other people were doing. If kids have nothing then shocker they feel lonely and outcast.
Haidt agrees. The whole point of his argument is that it has to be top down. "No children in this school can have smartphones" full stop. Of course kids will be mean to each other, you can't stop that. Trying to stop all aggression is a bad thing - a classic teacher move though haha. But bullying is also worse when everybody has phones.
Especially when autism exists. The internet didn't create autism. There are different reasons for mental health issues and lack of people being social. Life is nuanced.
As someone who was born in ‘95. I was part of the last cohort of kids to not get exposed to social until i was already an older teenager. I spent a lot of my time outside with friends in elementary and middle school. Social media wasn’t a thing besides myspace/facebook and early youtube. Everyone that had a phone could only call and text. It wasn’t until the latter half of high school where social media started popping off and people were getting smartphones but influencers and companies marketing on those platforms was still in uncharted territory. Plus covid didn’t really affect my education besides my last semester since i was in grad school but it did impact it going into the job market during lockdown.
So many times I've thought about how fortunate I am to have been born when I was. I lived through the transition between the industrial age and the information age. I can pull knowledge from both sides, recognizing the benefits and the disadvantages in either way of thinking, and I can choose the best approach for myself. It's going to be very difficult for the younger generations to do that, because it's hard to grasp something you've never experienced.
20:21 AGREED. I've thought about this before since middle school (now I've graduated high school) that I'm so grateful my childhood was still filled with playing with my parents or outside with my friends.
A few years back, I had somebody call me up and asked to do a survey. The first question was, how many hours do you spend on Facebook?The smallest amount was two. I said "two I only spend about a half hour on facebook." In a disbelieving voice, the surveyor asked, "You only spend a half hour a day on facebook." I said a day. "I meant in a week. I only spend about five minutes a day." Since then, I've been on facebook even less time.
25-year-old female here, who only ever used social media because of college (needed it to look normal when finding a roommate, and to fit in socially). After I finished college, I deleted all of my social media (except for RUclips lol), and I have been so much happier without it. I have friends who are using it, and I don’t judge that, but for me personally it was very toxic and caused a lot of negative comparisons, so I finally removed myself after I no longer felt it was beneficial. It was isolating at first, but now I have a small circle of friends who love me without needing a constant photo reminder of my existence. It helps that I am an introvert though. I have a four-year-old half sister, and I worry for her future.
This is so fascinating as an elder Gen Z I managed to grow up playing outdoors and graduated college right before Covid so I didn’t lose that much of my youth but social media definitely fucked me up. I only just finally quit all social media and it was 2 weeks of misery but my attention span is back. I have ADHD and I find it a lot easier to focus now that short form content that gives me a quick dopamine hit isn’t as easily accessible
My brother recently made a good point by saying that if you need a notification to see it, it's not important. I recently turned off notifications for most of my apps. It gave me time to focus on more important things in life.
Such a great conversation between two highly intelligent people and fantastic speakers and listeners, thank you gentlemen. I do agree with Dr Mike's observations and concerns about authoritarian approach to "controlling" the internet. I have two very young children and am currently trying to gather as much information on these topics so I can make good parenting decisions as they grow up ❤
I am so glad I listened to this and will definitely check the books out! As a GenX mom of GenZ kids and a preschool teacher, I can definitely see the effect of the internet on our kids. Thankfully my sons (all out of high school) are pretty well adjusted, but they still have their struggles with technology (mostly staying on it for too long). I even find myself wondering where the time has gone when I've just been randomly scrolling and watching shorts/reels. I work with low-income families (many of the parents are GenZ) and it is just different. They really don't know how to communicate outside of their phones! We teach mostly social-emotional skills in our classrooms because our kids lack those abilities. We are now getting students that were born during the pandemic, so not quite as socialized as in the past. It is going okay, but some days are tough! There is always hope. I look forward to reading this book. Thank you for addressing this!
9:25 i remember starting spanish class when i was 14 and like inherently knowing that my crucial language period had already passed bc i couldn’t pick it up in the way id used to pick things up so i was mad that our district didn’t start languages until high school. so idk when it passed, but i totally knew at 14 that it had passed.
Social media and the internet messed me up. There was a time when my social anxiety was so bad I didn't even know how to communicate with my family. Now its a little bit better, but id still consider this the lowest ive ever been. All because of the internet addiction i can't seem to or want to ger rid of
You’re not going to get kids away from social media. No matter what you do they’re gonna find ways to access it/the information it brings. The important thing to do is stop wasting energy trying to control it and put that energy into teaching your kids how to deal with what they experience. You can’t shield them, you have to teach them the responsible way to deal with their emotions themselves. It’s a new world and we have to adapt. Is it the best thing? No. But it’s what we have.
The problem with these kinds of conversations is they generalize too much. Not everyone born around the same time is going to experience the same types of things. I don't really buy into the whole generational biases that most people seem to, it's just not productive and it reduces everyone into categories and stereotypes that is not going to apply to everyone.
It's better to frame this discussion in terms of public health and societal trends, rather than whether or not it chimes into _your specific_ personal experience, or those of specific individuals. From a public health perspective, there _are_ significant differences between the mental health of different age groups, and those differences are generational (i.e. 15 year olds are more troubled now than 15 year old were 50 years ago). That won't apply to everyone, in the same way not everyone who smokes dies of lung cancer. Explaining that requires thinking about things in terms of generations. Explaining the trends _without_ reference to generations is difficult and less effective.
I got on to social media way too young and it definitely changed me a lot through my formative years. Combine that with a messed up household and things got roughhh
Yaaaaas to all of this. Thank you, Dr. Mike and Jonathan Haidt, for this episode. Hopefully many people who don't read books do watch this. Many of my fellow Millennial mothers around me DO NOT read books, only bits and pieces (of often dubious quality) from their social media feeds. They are so deep in their own social media addictions that they don't understand how they're being negatively affected let alone their children. These are women, who like me, have postgraduate education but have at least temporarily shelved our careers for motherhood. We have time to read! We have a strong work ethic. We can process complex ideas. We want to be good moms. But it's rare for me to find someone who reads nonfiction and wants to actually talk about serious stuff like this, even when it directly affects our children. To bring up these uncomfortable topics is often to be viewed as a paranoid Debbie Downer. If the parents can't even get it together, it gives me little hope for our kids.
As an early zoomer, I understand the dangers of virtual world for child development. However, it can be really useful for education if used right. I’ll give an example from my own life: I didn’t have a free access to the internet until 14 or so and my parents also didn’t allow me to enjoy gaming (even after we got home internet) because they believed that it will impact my grades at school. As a consequence, my peers understand computers much better that I do, they know how to install or reinstall programs, protect their security, some of them can even program a bit (just needed that to buff some specs for gaming, apparently). They also have polished their English while I had to go to some school that specialises on English and go to multiple abroad programs (which costed a fortune for my parents). I honestly think I could save a lot of money and be more educated in IT if my parents would have given me a bit more of freedom. I think it was overprotective of them and now I feel falling behind. So yeah, how about not banning all internet for kids? At the very least the access to computers and digital literacy should be granted, imo.
I agree. Or at least I want to keep this in mind. Perhaps better education of digital use is better than outright prohibition. Perhaps do prohibit social media until late age, but let access to digital tools (even if it's restricted access) and educate well on how to use them.
I had kids early, I was 19 when my oldest was born. My wife and I have managed to make it through some really hard years, but looking back on it now, I realize that I've had to take all the steps recommended to twenty year olds by Dr. Haidt just to make it through. I can't have hardly any notifications, I've taken risk by starting my own business, and the correct morning and night routine has been a godsend.
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Thank you 🫂
I'm 15 and I still don't have a phone or social media. It's a blessing
Hello Dr Mike i want the link of some medical drama please
@DoctorMike please react to Doc Martin
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“You’re being socialized by random weirdos” is the best way to describe social media! Well said
To me, it’s like when you take your new puppy to a dog park to get him/her socialized to other dogs. Many of them will be “random weirdo” dogs, as you say, but there’s value in getting young critters (& kids) acclimated to random weirdos so they aren’t scared of them & therefore react w/ aggression!
Agree. The way that I think of it is like there's a lot of "NPCs" in the comment sections of every social media app out there. They can share insane opinions about something and can turn perspectives into a toxic thoughts for people. In real life, you normally stay away from those people. But in social media indeed, it feels like you can't get away by those literal random strangers or worse, random weirdos everytime you open the apps.
Better than most of my family lmao
@@DeeEllEffI agree with you to some extent. But comparing human children to dogs, is extremely weird. Assuming the parents would raise their children correctly, the kid would automatically know when a situation or person is off. Yes, again, dogs know that to some extent, but not to the extent that humans do. Again, comparing young kids to a dog is extremely weird.
@@DeeEllEffAlso, kids SHOULD be scared of “random weirdos.” That’s how they get their fight or flight response. You wouldn’t act out of aggression in a “weird” situation if you weren’t scared.
It's wild he didn't once discuss city design. Many kids aren't given the freedom to do anything outside of their homes because they are gridlocked. When my parents were young they could walk or bike to school, stores, their after-school jobs, and places to meet their friends. When I was young, the only way I could go anywhere was to ask my parents to drive me as there were no other options. No wonder I spent so much time online because there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. We designed cities without gathering places or mobility without a car so what do you expect children to do instead of rotting online? Good luck getting free play and independence in a suburb with no sidewalks.
Dr. Mike needs to put out an urban planning episode.
👏 this
So true
Yesss! A fellow fan of urban planning I see
It's especially an issue in America. In Europe, kids travel everywhere quickly and reliably via public transportation. The car-centric infrastructure in the US would makes it very hard to address this issue.
The actual problem is that in many US cities, safety is on the same level as in any random third world banana republic. Otherwise, children could walk or use a bike (they would be less obese), or use public transport.
I see social media for kids is like giving an 8-year-old a brand new car and saying, "Have fun on the highway, but don't get into any accidents."
That's incredibly hyperbolic.
@Gn3rd it's an analogy, it's not supposed to be literal.
@@Parrot5884 Well , There is a true story of a five-year-old driving on the highway off to the dealership to buy a Lamborghini. 😃, I just remembered that story when you said its not supposed to be literal 😀
@@Parrot5884 That doesn't really make it less hyperbolic.
and then with a little education its a task as easy as any other
Doctor Mike is such a good interviewer. He listens but also debates while staying always polite and open to the new information.
As an older gen z who was allowed social media access as soon as I was 13 I agree so much with all these points. For so long i didnt even realize i did it but i often dont let myself have moments of silence hardly ever. Even when I’m reading a book i’ll put a youtube vid on in the background. When cleaning im listening to a podcast, walking to work, driving, anything really. I always have some sort of background stimulus rather than living in the moment :/ It wasn’t until recently when I was able to get back into spirituality and faith that I started noticing how drastic this problem is. Im grateful for my faith since its helped me to see the world differently but i still struggle with the effects of having my youth/puberty surrounded by social media and phones
Putting on a RUclips video in the background while reading a book is WIIIILD. But yeah it's sad that nowadays our minds are constantly needing stimuli. It really takes away from the beauty of silence or being able to explore our own thoughts regularly
I also find youtube in the background helpful. I can't tell if its the big scary evil algorithm using me or just the noise of people which makes it enjoyable (I'm an only child so life is quite quiet).
I just finished my 19th year of teaching middle school and high school. I started to be concerned about 10 years ago. There was a notable shift in behavior and mental health. I've noticed another shift over the last three years, and I'm no longer concerned. I'm distressed.
I would like to hear about your observations and experiences over the years.
I am grateful to social media for one thing: The ability to find channel's like this one, with thoughtful highly trained experts. Great conversation with Dr. Haidt. Everything he says makes so much sense.
I didn’t get an iPhone until I was almost 16, and I am so glad. The unrestricted internet is a scary place, especially for vulnerable minds…
Same, I wonder how different it has made us to the rest of our generation
You say that as if 16 year olds have the maturity and intelligence to make proper use of the internet.
Some do, and those few would probably have been able to handle it at almost any age. It's how they operate.
Most 16 year olds I think are more likely than not to run into trouble online.
@@imthinkingthoughts I think we are very different from the younger half of our generation. I have cousins that are young gen z and they are so antisocial and lack so much social skills that it's unbelievable. They always sit with their phones glued to their face and barely says hello when we visit.
@@DILFDylF Good point, I think the main difference is that as kids start to reach their mid-teens, they have a greater capacity for understanding internet safety. I was fortunate enough to have parents and educators that taught me a lot about managing myself and my interactions on the internet and to always check sources, etc. The combination of age and maturity makes all the difference.
I am Gen z(1998)... I didn't get a smart phone till I was in college. The best thing that could have happened to me. I don't want to imagine a me that started on social media and smart phones when I was 13 or somewhere around there
As a Gen Z myself I can't be more grateful that my parents restricted the internet for me as a child and teen. I had a "dumb phone" (one of those slider phones) from 13 until I was 15, and a smartphone with restricted internet access with no social media until I was 18. I was still able to talk with friends and plan hangouts without the toxicity of social media. Guess what? I still made lots of friends without social media and arguably created much closer and long lasting friendships without it. As an adult my closest friends don't spend their time on social media, and it has made for very meaningful and close relationships in my life. I really hope if I have children someday, I can be part of the movement to keep children off social media. Like Dr. Haidt said in the video, if half of parents restricted access kids would be able to find a group to socialize with.
I had no phone and just chose to never use social media.
@@Zach476you are using social media
Lucky!! I'm 16 and grew up on a phone and social media, I'm pretty smart but the cost of that is social anxiety 💀
My oldest daughter is 10 and I can’t believe how many kids in her class have smart phones and are allowed to use social media. I don’t use anything other than RUclips and that has actually helped because my daughter doesn’t see me on social media all the time. She also knows there’s no way in hell she’s getting a cell phone any time soon lol I’m actually going to be homeschooling her this year and from here on out because of how bad school has gotten already with the introduction to young kids using social media.
Restrictions are in place for kids for VERY GOOD reasons. And parents need to start recognizing those reasons and step up to keep our kids safe.
It’s also insane how illiterate kids have become because they’re not reading books anymore. Kids graduating high school with barely a 4th grade reading level. Something’s gotta give with social media because it’s only getting worse.
@@Basbhat Sounds like your'e doing a good job so far and I'm sure your daughter will thank you one day!
All I know is:
Smartphones ruined a lot for us.
The internet and social media used to be something that we could only access by going to a room in the house that had a computer.
Now we can access the internet and social media anywhere at anytime and that is so unhealthy.
this dude blames the existence of transgender people on social media... he calls it a "social contagion"
Also you can post pics and get stalkers and weirdos DM'ing you.
As with anything, there are upsides and downsides. Yes, some people find it harder to stay in control when they basically have the internet in their pocket, but it's also a huge boon for those who find comfort in talking to peers wherever they are.
Smartphones are not inherently healthy or unhealthy.
It is harmful in a way, and there is always a trade-off for civilization. Before cars, the concept of dying from high speed collisions was foreign. Despite the new risk, humans still found it worth it and adopted to it, with safer designs, legal enforcements, and training. The same could be said about technology and social media.
@@Gn3rd If only more people were more nuanced like you. I've come to realise nuance is quite rare compared to what my naive but more hopeful younger self presumed hahaha
Its social media but also a lack of parenting.
So very true
Are you a parent?
Parenting goes downhill when you need both parents working all of the time just to get by.
There’s bad parents, sure, but there’s plenty that just barely get by.
Because the parents are also distracted by social media. We’re all addicts
It's not necessarily just a lack of parenting. It's the fact that parents right now are super out of their element. My parents managed to keep me and two of my siblings (2000-2005) safe just fine.
But my 2009 sibling? My parents did everything they could and more. None of it has worked. It's a completely new and terrifying situation.
While some parents are probably just negligent, many parents are trying their hardest and failing.
While there are a lot of negatives to unrestricted access to the internet, I'm thankful that I had it growing up. There's so much misinformation that I would have believed if I only had my family and friends at school to ask.
Not sure where you grew up, but they must've had TERRIBLE libraries.
@@unlistedandtwisted It's southern US so yes, lot's of book banning going on. Besides that though, no one is going to a library to research every minor question they have.
The issue isn't the internet, it's social media and smartphones
@@justincain2702 True. Can we stop debating this? Thanks.
To me, the solution isn’t restricting access, it’s giving a proper, honest education on how to navigate and use the internet in the best way.
i was born in 2000 and am now a parent myself and this conversation is something my peers have been trying to cope with since we were teens. thank you for addressing older members of gen z specifically, i feel often this conversation focuses on young gen z and gen alpha, and we are forgotten about
i am a teenager, and its absolutely insane to see just how addicted some of the kids my age are to their phones. they either have no social skills and dont take initiative in group projects, or they have the craziest ego/attitude
That's a good observation....and you're right.....also, as I'm sure you noticed, MOST of the content is shallow/superficial......there's almost no real personality, no brains and no talent for MOST of the "influencers".....
At least when I was a kid, MOST of the celebrities were specifically talented or brilliant....
@@ghost9-9ghost totally, talent was what got you famous before, now it's how outrageously you behave or how flat your stomach is
same I've noticed that as well. my class is full of very self-centered people.
I am a teenager as well and have observed the same thing. It's really unfortunate.
And you didn't learn how to use capitalization! 🤣
As a early gen Z (2001), what I noticed the most is the change from neighbourhood friendgroups to watching online personalities or engaging in online interaction without significant social connection in the last 14 years, especially during and after lockdown.
I need to and love to learn (in videos, studies, undergradepapers, documenteries or books in ecology, paleontology, health, psycology and anthropology), and the internet can satisfy that need, but as a human I need to socialize to live and the internet/social media doesn't satisfy that need.
I see Dr. Mike as kidney. Hard at work, to eliminate the waste that social media feeds us. 👊
I see him more like a liver... same train of thought but there's only one of him and we better not be abusive cuz if he's gone we're all gonners because he is far less "easily ;)" replaced.
@@llamababiezhellyeah 👏👏👏😃 Love it ..
😂😂 Well said
@llamababiezhellyeah imagine if Dr. Mike was like a kidney and he had a twin somewhere that we didn't know about 😂😂😂
@@dhesyca4471 plot twist of the century!!!
No IG, tik tok, FB, X or anything. I'm dead to the world. I stopped comparing myself to others and started living for myself. I also don't worry about when I'm applying to jobs or if someone is looking for me, what they are going to find.
You're on RUclips.
@shawnshurtz9147 that's not social media. I'm not sharing content. I watch RUclips instead of tv. It keeps me in touch with what's going on with social media but putting your life out there is different.
You're just like me.
Same, it’s freeing!!!
@@shawnshurtz9147 I'm on YT too. I had an old friend email me because there's no other way to reach me online. You can't exactly reach out to each other here unless you're posting stuff to comment on. It's not the same.
This cannot be talked about enough both in children and the addiction in adults. Thank you!!
I’m a teacher. I’ve shared this with do many people now! What an important debate and interview! Thank you for this!
From last time he was on I turned off notifications to most apps. I am a millennial mom of almost a teen. This has given me confidence in my decision to limit screen time and not allow social media. Great conversation Dr Mike 👍🏻
I’m older gen-z: I think social media has made my 20’s crisis so much worse. This is where I’m really feeling the comparison when I watch my friends on social media get engaged, get married, have kids, buy houses,etc. When I’m on the socials, the depression and anxiety is astronomical for me. I’ve had to cut way down on it.
Edit: 59:28 when I am dealing with a mental health problem like anxiety, what I really want is someone to help me get a game plan where I can at least do something about it. But because a lot of my anxiety is social media caused or touch starvation, older people (even professionals) can’t really help so much of the time. They just don’t have the skills and experience either since it’s all still so new for everyone.
Just curious, what do you define as “older”?
@@homosapien6031 mid-20’s. The gen-z cutoff is 1996 by most definitions
That's not a Gen z issue, that's everyone's issue. Only a few lucky ones find a mentor. Most do not ever find one. But since you can clearly articulate and have figured out that's what you want and need, you'll be at a better chance of finding one.
In the meantime, read books about life advice.
@@argoneonoble Absolutely the 20’s is a time where everyone is at different stages of life so in that regard it’s totally normal. But other generations have not had other people’s life stages thrown in their faces nearly every second of the day just because of the amount of exposure via social media. Other generations had that 20’s crisis, but it was also easier to disconnect because it wasn’t every moment of every day. Hope that makes sense. I can’t prove it for a fact, but it is a feeling I get after talking with my older relatives about their 20’s :)
@@homosapien6031 Hitting the cusp of 1996. That’s the official cutoff year between millennial and gen-z so older would mean mid to late twenties. Maybe the early twenties depending who you talk to
As much people love demonizing young peoples usage of social media, they really don't talk about the reason why social media has become such a prevalent thing among young people especially kids and teens.
One of the reasons is lack of third places. Where can kids hangout? Where they can have their own space.
Also, social media can be a huge saviour if you're a part of a marginalized community. For example you're queer and/or black. Or if you can't manage to get friends from school or from after school activities, hobbies.
Social media has also been a way to get irl friends and communities.
As a teen girl, yes I got a bunch of grown men asking me for nudes or sexting me. But at the same time, I got to connect with other teen girls about various of things and talk to someone who can relate to you.
The positive experiences of social media outweighs the negative ones that I experienced.
I'm not a teenager, but I 100% agree! I too found people who think like me in socal media.
Social media brings people together to share ideas and become (an online) community when IRL there's no one or just very few people around to share your ideas with.
@@uselesstalent36 This is the aspect being ignored. Things aren't always black and white.
Great points. Public-facing conclusions are biased in favor of practicality. It’s easier to advocate for something straightforward like no-phone schools than it is to encourage the creation of more third places.
That being said, a big part of his book also discusses giving kids more freedoms in the real world. They’ll play on the street, out in the woods, etc.
@@mncheng I was speaking as someone who lived in a rural suburban area. That was extremely white and extremely straight.
I lived in a childcare home and adults trusted me a lot, so I had a lot of freedom per se. But I didn't use that freedom much because I didn't manage to get friends from school or from the home. There were other teens my age that managed to become the type of friends that hang out in the center, usually in busstations or parks during the summer but there are no spaces during the winter.
Isolating children from the internet is not going to guarantee that they are going to be more social in real life.
I haven't read his book. But I feel like I can get better analysis about this from someone else.
Exactly! Disabled and chronically ill communities also need opportunities to connect safely! Condemning social media completely ignores how it benefits people who are isolated
as someone who was born in 1999, i DID experience a lot of outdoor play but that's because my parents were very weary about giving us phones as kids, so now all of my friends find it strange that i don't check my phone often and don't look at social media, texts, or missed calls as often as they do (unless it is about work of course). most of my personality comes from my culture and my nature. i think that the biggest influence that my generation has had on my personality is connected to my understanding of topics like politics, philosophy, and mental health. my siblings and i have much more knowledge and empathy about these topics than my parents and i think that having access to media in our late teens helped with that, however now there's a huge disconnect between our view points and out parents' and it's near impossible to close that gap.
Same
Where I come from, you don't get a phone until graduate high school
I'm also curious to know about how mental health awareness in this generation has probably been the reason for the increase in these statistics vs in previous generations when people couldn't really identify if they were experiencing depression and anxiety or weren't comfortable enough to come forward. Does anyone know of any studies on this aspect?
Obviously, I still do think our generation does experience more anxiety and depression more so than the previous, but i want to know if it's grown exponentially or if the statistics are more inflated due to increased awareness and acceptance.
That's a good point.
Might be both being combined. Self reporting increases as self reporting is easier. So it could be institutional and social at the same time. You must then first identify the timing of all this and trends of creation of avenues to self report.
Did you not watch the video? Dr. Haidt clearly lays out that there was a sudden explosion in mental health issues in 2012. Do you really think it's plausible that for some unknown reason, everyone collectively became aware of mental health suddenly in 2012? Or is it because 2012 was the year facebook bought instagram, converted it to facebook's predatory algorithm, and started marketing it to teenagers?
Dr Haidt touches on this point often, his counter argument is that the number hospitalisations for self harming behaviours/sucide attempts have also increased (and the age of those admitted started dropping), which is not self reported data.
I remember when DR Mike said he wanted to bring MR Jonathan on his podcast because he liked his book and was trying his best to bring him on the show! Glad that happened, Great topic to pick up for a podcast!
I am 21 years old, I really enjoyed this kind of compassion for us and the younger generations and the insight
I was born in 1999, didn’t have a lot of these issues. But I did grow up in a lower income strict household so I didn’t see social media until I was in my later teens and definitely didn’t have an iPhone at 13. Greatful for that now!
I'm a high school math teacher. I've been teaching since 2016. I jokingly tell people that teaching in 2024 is like having front row tickets to the end of the world, but it's becoming less of a joke each year. The problem is Social Media as a whole, but specifically TikTok and Facebook. The cell phones are a huge problem. It's the single worst invention in the history of humanity.
Absolutely a good conversation about mental health and social media. One we need to be having much more. I do think Dr. Haidt missed the mark when he started going down the rabbit hole on gender roles and gender predispositions though.
Dr. Jonathan Haidt is on point. I am 25 and fucked up. Chains of habits are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken
Amen. What kinds of habits are you struggling with?
This podcast has been so fascinating to listen to... I was born in 1997 so I am elder Gen Z. If I could go back and live my teen years without the internet, I would. It harmed me in so many ways I'm embarrassed to admit, having access to literally anything a dark teenage mind could fathom, and parents being totally none the wiser. I was severely depressed and was exposed to all sorts of stuff I shudder to think about now, and I can see the ways it damaged me as I developed through a really important time. Thankfully I have always been an active person, and quite sociable, so I grew out of it as I changed routines and got myself out and about more, but I really worry for these introverted kids that seem to be able to spend a full 24hrs looking at a screen.
I'm interested that connection to nature didn't feature in this at all, this is what I feel saved me from the worst continuing effects of my 'online puberty'. It has been proven the world over that time in nature boosts mental and physical wellbeing, and inherently gets people off of their phones- and posting to social media that you're out and about having fun can inspire others to do the same. Particularly fascinating that Dr Haidt thinks it's impossible to survive without uber! Forget that public transport is better for the environment? I love how most of my social media algorithms now gear towards ecology, wellness and learning about awesome stuff in nature, it constantly inspires me to learn more and explore new places. I use my phone often on walks to identify species, and I'll post to groups on social media to share what I've found. These groups can also be extremely vital as a source of citizen science as well, which is a vital component on conservation, here in the UK.
👏👏FACTS ON THE REVIEWS!!!! ITS VERY TOXIC FOR OUR SOCIETY!!! JUST AS BAD AS SOCIAL MEDIA!!! I had a business I closed because of the mental stress and pressure of reviews. I had a 4.9 rating but I was always so stressed trying to be perfect and lost a lot of money! Thank you for your good work Dr Mike!!!!💜💜💜
Good job Dr Mike .. You’re raising the bar for our younger generation. This is a person to get people to know. Thank you
This is excellent conversation and presentation. I work in academia and have experienced first hand the decline in functional and proactive thinking from 18-19 year old students that I had attributed to pandemic high school/middle school lockdown fallout, but now I can see the longer term problem in the years that Dr. Haidt noted (post smartphones 2010 and post insta 2012). And here we are ... Thank you for this robust and thought-provoking content.
I'm at the 54:21 mark and I guess I did childhood wrong because my favourite tv show as a kid was Transformers. It's an unfortunate bias but good on Dr. Mike for pushing back because little girls are absolutely socialized towards homemaking and caregiving. I know Labour isn't Dr. Haidt's speciality but he might want to search "pink collar ghettos". Autobots, roll out
Thanks for the timestamp came here from the short
I wish mike pushed back on that abit more to get a proper dialogue in that cuase thebtoy isle example specificaly is quite the horrid example
@@jay15951 I completely agree.
At 10:18 ~ish still so may return with more reflections :p
But wanted to note how those ancient societies hunter gatherer societies didn't necessarily divide labor in the way people originally thought. Newer research has found that tasks (eg. hunting vs gathering) were not divided by gender in the ancient times.
If you look at the relatively more recent ancient cultures, again, there were many who did not divide labor or society in the way now considered 'traditional'.
Just wanted to mention.
It's important to note these gendered divisions often framed or seen as 'natural'/'inherent',
are fundamentally not so.
Update:
Got to that part, and ye
There isn't rly a fundamental difference like that. The 'gendered trend' is all socialization. This kind of discussion is what contributes to it.
Any 'difference' like that is individual based.
Afab ppl who by nature are more practical focused learn to focus on relationships because it's treated as shameful and wrong to be the other way,
And amab ppl get the same but inverse treatment.
Lmao, bit of a personal interest tangent,
but,
dang, any wonder then that Autistic afab ppl are chronically underdiagnosed when autistic brains generally are more logic (as opposed to emotion) focused :p
Don't remember the exact wording, but recently found that and suddenly life made a bit more sense to me :p
It was about order/priority of things that get processed/considered
Where generally autistic brains go something like: Logic, Context, Emotion
While neurotypical brains tend to go: Emotion, Context, Logic
:p
Very paraphrasing & simplified, but damn.
Considering the influence of socialization, yeah no fukin wonder Autism was considered a "male disorder" for the longest time, and even now there is the "male brain theory" which in reality has again more to do with socialization and how people arbitrarily have assigned these traits to gender when they have no actual connection.
Dr. Mike, as a 44 year old Mom of a 5 year old, I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s when no one had phones, etc. This is a topic I struggle with when it comes to my daughter. When is appropriate for a phone, social media. (We know it will not be anytime soon). My husband and I are in complete agreement that we will avoid a phone and definitely social media for as long as humanly possible.
As a Gen Z who is turning 18 this year I would say give her a phone at like 13 and then social media can come at like 16 with screen time limits it probably won't be popular with her but it limits exposure to harmful things and she can self regulate better t 16 than at 13, at 13 it should mostly be for communication. Oh fyi that'sapproximately what I had, had a flip phone until I was 13 and mentally I would say I'm pretty fine and I can self regulate with social media, honestly mostly use my phone for communication.
@@izzyhjelmstrom2397 thank you for taking your time to share.
Dr. Haidt outlines his recommendations in the book ("Anxious Generation"). PLEASE read it; as a teacher, his recommendations seem reasonable AND he also discusses the difficulties you might run into in implementing them as well as how to navigate those problems.
As a parent, I agree this is a super challenging question, especially since the context of when children get phones has changed. Middle school it seems to be the norm that kids have phones and are texting each otter (and i’m worried what ready access to Apple’s spell check will do to grammas).
With my younger two, we’re planning to wait at least until middle school. Based on our experience with the older kids, built in parental controls are ineffective, and we’d prefer to wait longer but are also worried about causing social isolation if we’re the one family where you have to message the parents to hang out
@@taneelbrightblade6622can’t your child talk with his friends on a family ipad or computer?
also, i would recommend an apple watch + airpods. he can make calls, listen to music but there’s no social media or web browsing.
imessage can be used but it’s clunky on such a small screen so it becomes tiring soon, which discourages too much use.
This guy is so easy to listen to, while dealing with super serious subjects. I really appreciate this episode.
Hey it's Haidt! I've studied so much of his work in college. He's awesome!
This is fascinating, I've been trying to figure out why I struggle with social norms while my brothers are very "normal"well adjusted people. They were born 1980 and 1982, I was 1990. They had a child hood of riding bikes with friends, I early on was sequestered "safe" inside and on a computer by 10 years old and very much experienced puberty online. He's absolutely right that going through that developmental stage virtually I missed out on in person intuitive knowledge. I'm also an older parent now reaching my mid 30s with a toddler and been so confused by my generations kids. We're a generation habituated to being online raising kids who are even more so. We're feral cats raising another generation removed. It's fascinating to see this happening so fast and I wonder how society will shift with it
I was born in the '94 and I'm not terminally online, soooooo
The cut off was 1996 sir, not 1990.
I'm 1991 and enjoyed both. At 1990 I'm surprised you didn't grow up similar to your brothers. I consider millennials as the last of the normal, integrated ones. That said I do notice the early 90s millenials are very disconnected and closer to Gen Z...but honestly all I remember was riding bikes, playing, socializing all while still playing video games and MySpace and Facebook in high school. It was a beautiful mix of both and socializing as men it was more expected of you back then a more normal life. It was a great mix of both. And I was shocked how much society changed in the years that followed.
Is anyone else finding Dr Jonathan's voice very soothing?
He is super calm and gets his points across, very skilled conversationalist
Some have said he'd be good at ASMR. 😂
Until he started talking about how boys and girls being interested in different things isn't because of culture but because of the *tiny* differences in our *brains*
Yeah his voice is soothing but not the words he says lol
@reyfin4922,
@brittany4724 Are you debating facts? It's clear that while pointing out systematic biological differences between the two sexes, Dr. Haidt is as far as possible from attributing value differences to them.
I'm the same age as Doctor Mike! So glad, too. We got the very last, best childhood.
I completely agree, i have anxiety and depresstion, and the internet often makes me feel awful, epecially the algarythem, not working properly and im getting horrible videos, or triggering content.
Turn them off.
Shut off the algorithms. Don't engage in content.
Turn off your history and save things you want to see into playlists.
Avoid the open internet as much as possible.
Especially the gen alpha hate, I just can't stand those videos talking about "how gen alpha is the doom of humanity" even though they aren't
Algorithm* spell check costs nothing
@@Amber-sc9jp neither does manners
@@Amber-sc9jpmaybe don’t correct someone in such a rude way?? you know nothing ab op
As an elementary teacher, I am already seeing this new mindset in kids. They try something once and immediately declare "I can't do this, it's too hard" and give up.
EDIT: We have to remember there are exceptions to the rule. There are kids out there that reject smart phones, social media, etc. These are the kids that will go on to do great things for future generations. But they are far fewer than they were before.
You might like to know this: the fingers we used to write with are controlled by the same part of the brain which is responsible for controlling instant gratification. By encouraging kids to use hand-writing, they are learning to make decisions (choosing the words they use on the page and FORMULATING them with a pen means they are deciding how things are going to be) and at the same time we are educating them to delay their satisfaction until they have finished a train of thought and a physical task in an organised way. All that is lost when kids use phones and only have to tap in an answer and can rely on spellcheckers, grammar checkers and AI. It literally dulls the brain and breeds kids who cannot exert any self-control.
Hey, I'm trying to be open to the fact that you see a lot of children on the regular and probably have a better grasp on what they're like on a large scale. At the same time, I've been around children and tried to teach them something new before, it's not uncommon for them to say those sorts of things. It's our job as the adults in their lives to help them come up with healthier mindsets and a healthy internal dialogue when they encounter challenges. Many adults carry the "this is too hard, I should give up" mentality with them their whole lives and then wonder why things aren't ever going their way and they end up feeling worthless and helpless. A vicious internal cycle.
So, a kid might have an adult at home with the same attitude when challenged and they're just parroting it. It's not a "this generation" thing in my mind. It's an "any person can fall into that negative thinking pattern" kind of thing regardless of age. They need to be taught how to speak to themselves kindly, and what they can say to themselves to motivate them to keep going when it gets rough.
@@brittany4724thank you so much for this, it really aggravates me seeing people put down kids for things outside of their control.
@@TechProducerOfPi 😅 you're welcome. It's become a personal pet peeve of my own, as well. I don't think we should be damning them. The kids of today will learn and grow, like we all did.
nonsense. I am a millenial and we said "i cant do it, its too hard" long before the Internet was around. I remember I threw my bicycle into the bushes because I couldnt ride it when my dad tried to reach me. Stop being such doomers, its pathetic, really. Instead of blaming children, be a better teacher.
I am 21 and my parents didn't allow me to get social media till senior year of highschool so I could connect with friends after college. Even tho I didn't start using it till after 18 years old and really didn't become addicted till the last two years I feel like it has caused a lot of damage for my brain and ability to focus and motivate myself to do tasks. I cant imagine how much worse of I would be if my parents let me get social media in middleschool.
I really enjoyed the conversation in this video and thought it brought out great perspectives! I’m a female, in my mid 20s, and in the tech field. I also sadly grew up in a cult so my experiences have been different when it comes to social media and being on the internet growing up. I will admit I got into a lot of trouble as a kid and I know that a lot of it was due to wanting attention since I was socially isolated from being in the cult. You weren’t really allowed to make friends outside the cult so this made navigating puberty and life 10 times harder. For a long time I was the only kid who didn’t have a phone in school and it was horrible since even teachers were expecting all kids to have phones by the time I was in middle school! Sometimes we needed them for class work which only elevated my stress. Eventually I grew out of it and got my phone but to this day I don’t keep notifications on for anything. I hate notifications and use very limited social media. I mostly just use discord and RUclips. I feel like I’ve never related to others as much who are my generation or younger since I’ve been isolated from the mainstream. I never joined the bandwagon and so I don’t have that same type of community feelings that I know some of my peers have. I’m curious how religious trauma can affect people’s ability to socialize since I think it has played a huge impact on my life.
Man, can I like this video more than once? It touches so many modern issues with interesting takes on them and high brow POVs and analysis. Great stuff
I actually feel so bad for kids that have been exposed to the unfiltered internet. Like seriously the stuff they be getting exposed to is WILD!
And the internet is taking away kids’ social skills! They don’t play neighborhood games with the neighbor kids anymore and hardly any of them even know how to properly answer a phone call. It’s really sad, that kids these days (I hate saying kids these days it makes me feel old) don’t know how to socialize with real world people anymore…
Also the fact that predators could find them too…..the internet is such a scary place
So greatful I was raised by a woman that knew women can be warriors as she was raised with all brothers who treated her as an equal not as a “only a woman” as you said. Women are every bit as capable as men. The even best of men came from women. We (individuals) are only as strong as we are as a whole society.
You're the first comment I saw about that, thank you ffs. Dc mike not even brigging up this comment and correcting him is really disheartening
@@Missbiscotteu thank you. And Agreed, he normally does a good job about calling out bs but catch catch everything I guess.
@@Missbiscotteucorrecting him on what?
Women are every bit as valuable as men.
When it comes to capacity they are definitely not nearly as capable in certain aspects, especially related to physical strength and athleticism.
Same goes the other way around in other aspects.
When have we started comparing men and women‘s ability
I am in IT and had my kids in 2000 and 2001. I didn't get phones for my kids. Simple. Even when they were available, I just told them that they can get a phone when they can afford to pay for it. Not sure why people can't put limitations on their kids? My kids didn't die without a phone and are functional, contributing members of society. Oh and I spent my spare tim with my kids as well, reading to them and going to parks and out on fun days out when we could.
Same. My kids are 16 and 18, and the rule is they get phones when they NEED one. My eldest got hers when she went on a European trip at 17, and the sixteen year old will get one when she has a job and is driving. Otherwise they only get their tablets on the weekends. It's not hard to limit. Reasonable boundries are good for kids.
I was born in 1984 an early Millennial. I am happy that I have the ability to consciously choose what I want to keep on consuming online. Experienced how things have evolved in the social media spehere until I decided to stop as even before social media I know best not to compare yourself to others as it can ruin yourself. It has always me vs me.
As someone born in 01 I straight up cold turkied myself from phone use and I’ve never felt so clear minded and had so much happiness brought into my life over the little things than at any point in my life…sometimes we have to be our own guardians when people don’t consider the potential outcomes.
Just a minor point, but one thing I love about Haidt is that he actually acknowledges the way sex _matters_ , in a way that's anthropological rather than political. Throughout the interview, he draws attention to how trends effect men/boys and women/girls differently. All too often, you only see that when people are making politicised points (either pro-male or pro-female, depending on political world view), but he treats it more as though he's just acknowledging that humans are like most other mammals - we do have broad psychological/behavioural differences between sexes, that _are not_ just due to culture and politics (although where biology ends and culture begins is always going to be murky).
I see prof Jonathan Haidt, I like the video immediately. What a breath of fresh air and reason!
While I appreciate most of what was said, I truly think the section about societal pressures' influence/contribution (or lack thereof) to the social media damage to each gender is incorrect and dangerous. Saying that girls don't want to play with cars/trucks and boys don't want to take photos from birth isn't true. Kids aren't born with a color preference or a favorite type of toy. While some would gravitate to normal societal standards, most wouldn't if pressures from family (immediate or extended), teachers, babysitters, books, stores, TV shows and more weren't constantly bombarding them from day one. Also, social media influence includes the ever increasing ads, which DO often showcase companies' ideologies, if not the ideologies of their target demographics. This has been the case in some form or another throughout history, just evolving slowly as the money shifts, which requires the ADULTS in society to make the shift first. Why does social media have a much higher rate of effect on young girls? Because the algorithm and marketing teams target messages of beauty, thinness, quiet, artsy, weak, sparkles/pink, etc as well as "what happens if you don't" (no friends, less success, being ugly, being alone, etc) to girls (and for boys to see and expect from girls) from SUPER young. Boys, in contrast, get superheroes, monster trucks, power, strength, control, dominance, dark colors, and individuality (aka less pressure to conform and be perfect) aimed at them. Hormones and genetics DO play a role, but saying that gendered societal roles and expectations aren't a continuous significant factor is just not true.
I do greatly appreciate the overall discussion here, as many extremely important and educational points were brought up. Thank you for bringing another fantastic guest and discussion to us.
I think you made an excellent point about companies appealing to parents' standards. Even if all they want is money, there are absolutely pathways for them to end up pushing ideas onto kids in order to get money
I also think this discussion was missing a huge rising trend, which is the social media influence on boys regarding "red pill" and other similar ideologies right now.
I'm kinda disappointed in Dr. Mike giving visibility to this person that clearly doesn't know much about gender studies and is advocating for patriarchal archetypes that damaged men and women's relationships for centuries. The entire part starting at 10:08 and on, where he states shows from the 30-50s were "good guides" for boys is problematic. Also, what's up with the "initiation rites" for males and females ? Separating men and women is exactly the one mistake that created all this tension between genders, and we're paying the price for that, more than ever, nowadays. Patriarchy is also the reason why depression and suicide rates are higher among men, it's not because minorities are calling sexism out (and yes, sexism is still responsible for the high rate of women being killed each day - it needs even more visibility and women sharing their experience and trauma).
Also, it seems like this Doctor has some history when it comes to homphobia and sexism while teaching classes (I just looked it up online 'cause I trust my instincts - I guess this comes from experience when hearing similar speeches from other so-called intellectuals). This man is clearly not aligned with current times and I wouldn't take his point of view very seriously when it comes to relationships between genders.
However, his analysis about smartphones and how addictive it is, is pretty on point (even though we're all aware of how problematic it is nowadays - it's not brand-new information).
@@presley5 THANK YOU!!! I felt a bit anxious just posting what I did, but you said it perfectly
Ugh thank you for saying this. Hearing this kind of rhetoric about what boys and girls “naturally” gravitate towards pisses me off, and to say that most careers are dominated by the sex that they are primarily due to innate biologically determined neurological reasons is quite incorrect and misinformed. I’m an engineering major and let me tell you, I didn’t even realize I *could* do engineering for all of my life till I got to college. But I realized it was an option for me and I’m in love with the major. Horrible to say that girls don’t end up in high paying well respected jobs because they aren’t “biologically tuned” for it. Bullshit.
As someone in their 20s, thank you so much for this conversation and advice!
It would be interesting to hear Dr. Haidt's stance on the 'virtual socialization' of adults who came before social technology-- the baby boomers and prior-- who are so prone to scams, to political radicalization, who think everything google tells them is divine decree, and also how that dichotomy interacts with their relationships with their technologically literate children and grandchildren
What a great conversation. I am in the middle of his book now and both enjoying it and worried about what I have have done.
I will add that my 14 yr old son longs for the youth I had. Born in the early 1970's, most of my memorable youth was in the 80's and teen years in the 90's. We had so much time to mess up, do nothing, let our minds wonder, be creative and the pressure of life was so much less stress. It visibly angers my son that his friends would rather 'stay inside', play video games vs. being outside doing stupid nonsense. It's close to impossible to get them to just "hang-out" and have no where to go - or just be teens and hang at the mall. I do hope that there is a youth revolt against all of this so they can take their lives back because adults are not helping.
Excellent book, Dr. Jonathan Haidt! I am reading it for a second time! Many relevant (and true) information! Thanks
As a 27 year old struggling on the daily with my mental health and over consumption of social media, I really needed to see this video.
As a mother of 2 and I do want to have more. I really express the need for human to human connection. I am so glad and grateful for daycares, clubs, and programs. I will not let my kids have a phone until I believe it is very needed. But seeing this makes me want to do my best for my kids to not have this problem or to at least lessen it as much as possible.
Love that you’re talking to him about this latest book. Really looking forward to listening.
I start been a fan of the long checkups episodes, big thanks to Dr Mike and the team for the effort 🙏🙏
God keeps y'all strong so you can help many others!! Help each other let the good light stick together to conquer the darkness
As someone born in 1997, instead of guessing when generations end just ask the people and I can tell you I have a lot more in common with people older than people a year younger, I remember having this conversation in school as well and when at university. The year below acted so odd, they would sing viral songs from youtube videos and that was people from sept 1998 to sept 1999. That is eactly the generation change. Ask anyone born at that time and I can garentuee they will concur. The issue is for some reason researchers making up generations never actually ask the people they are claiming fit into a category
Wealth has a lot to do with it too. Some people were born a few years later, but grew up poor and so they didn’t have all the new technology.
Well said , well said . 👏. I would get called a old soul as a child.
You don't just get to pick which generation you're in... it's fine to be outside the norms of your generation.
Buuut if you don't like the "label" then you don't need to find another label you want more. Just be an individual.
@@DILFDylF generations are made up, but if they are going to make them up make sure they at least make sense. This isn't a me thing, I have never found anyone my age who thought they were gen z, until some researcher who arbitrarily picked a date said so. There is a visible difference, if they bothered to actually look instead of guessing.
Well I'm the same age as you but I feel like I have waay more in common with gez z, especially at work it became very very apparent
54:35 drop the research please, I want to read it. Somehow I get the feeling that it didn't consider the social/culture pressures in genders and only considered the legal aspect of being "free".
Omg! I wasn't the only one who wondered this.
What does "free" even mean in a social construct. anarchism could be considered "free " but i can't imagine that makes a good society.
I also want to know what evidance he has that gendered choices aren't soical norms as that seems pretty wild
@@ZetsumeiIkari yeah, that's why I wanted to read that research what does "free" entail. I've only found an article talking about that research but not the research itself, I'm not really a good at looking for these things.
Same he really took me by surprise with that one and I wish Dr Mike gave more push back or made Dr Jonathan elaborate more.
i was looking for this comment… like how can both guys just say that certain sexes prefer certain things?? when my little cousin (male) was younger he LOVED playing dolls with my cousin and i. sure enough once he turned 5ish he started telling us “no im a boy, boys don’t play dolls” likewise i was babysitting for this girl and i saw she had some toy cars. i asked if she wanted to race the cars (something i loved as a kid) and she replied “ew… no that’s for boys. i’m not a boy.” like how can we just ignore the societal aspect? both kids clearly wanted to play with these toys but society told them no because of their gender. i think dr. mike kinda flopped on this one by agreeing
I'm so glad there are people in the comments pushing back on this.
Dr. Mike, this episode was enlightening! Dr. Haidt's insights on the harms of social media are thought-provoking. It's crucial to delve into these discussions to understand and address the complexities of our digital age. Looking forward to more insightful conversations like this!😊
just be aware its not perfect and can tell there is a right wing bias with that person causing him to avoid some topics and overgeneralize some issues that is harmful to some minorities
I liked that he did the example of people born in 1999 because he described exactly my case! I do think that often a lot of the fault is given to the kids saying “oh kids are on their phones all day” people should understand WHY they are on their phones. It’s addicting and of course parents are going to buy kids a phone because all of their friends have one. I often see situations in restaurants or public transport where parents give very little children a tablet to play instead of using other techniquew to calm them down, because it’s the easy way and I understand that it can be a difficult situations for parents, especially if people around don’t show any compassion for the parents, but I do think kids should he given a lot more opportunities of phone free activities because they will probably realize on their own that it’s much more rewarding than being on social media. So I also agree that a lot of change ahould come from early education on safe social media use but also from creating more opportunities for kids like they already said more recess time, more excercise, more time together etc.
Fantastic episode ❤
@@aliabdaal 💛
I am a R.N. I am not allowed to get my nails done. I do enjoy a pedicure with the foot masks etc. I relaxed and closed my eyes. Every other Girl were hunched over looking at their phones.I am there to relax, especially after a hard week of work standing most of the time.
Absolutely! I'm a chatty Cathy and am always talking with the lady doing my service and seen to be the only one, the Ladies are usually surprised that I'm not on my phone, mind you I'm super addicted to my phone just starved for adult conversation as a stay at home mom😂
Is there a reason for the nails not being allowed? Usually nurses wear gloves so that covers your nail polish. You can still wash your hands and nails with polish.
@@PinkRose0910 It depends on the facility they work at. Each place is different. I had fake nails twice when I was part of the wedding party. Even if u double glove all the bacteria can get under them. I play the guitar so I am used to it. I love fake nails with all the designs and stuff If I go on vacation I can wear some. I have a Medical Assistant that has her nails on all the time. So pretty. little fake diamonds and fun colors. Also I wear Nursemate Clogs with padded soles. I don't wear sneakers. I take them off B4 I go in my house and wipe them down with Lysol wipes.I don't want to bring any stuff from blood to whatever else is on them.
@@fdiw That is cute. My friend Just had a baby. It changed her so much. You have to be alert all the time. Packing up baby stuff. You just need to have an adult convo and some time alone. Good for you. My friend thinks its a big deal when she can shower for 15 minutes.
Such a great conversation- this needs to be seen by every new parent.
Huge fan of Dr. Haidt. He brings logic and calmness that’s desperately needed in today’s world
Much love. Jonathan’s work is so important. Thank you for having him on again!
Also, I would like to mention as a teen, when you don't listen to us, that's like giving us a large shove into social media. We don't want to come to you anymore.
That's understandable. I would like to suggest that there are always people (adults) who will listen to you, even if they're not your family. Counsellors, teachers, church people... There's always someone who will listen, you may have to reach out which may be uncomfortable but please don't feel like there aren't adults out there who can care for you in an emotional capacity. ❤
All I have to say is, if you think this is just a gen z experience, you haven't spoken to the online milenials that were on the PC and Internet from young ages. We saw all those horrific things and had predatory older men on young girls. Saying that as someone born in 89
I’m either a young millennial or old gen z and I feel so validated by everything Dr. Haidt had to say. 😊
I am almost 18 now. I find the social media debate really difficult sometimes because on the one hand, I am kind of addicted to social media.
On the other, social media let me connect to people that I would have never met otherwise who were my friends in times where everyone outside of my phone considered me too weird to be friends with. I would've been incredibly lonely for a few years if it wasn't for social media. Social media was also the spot where I could experiment with my gender when I was unsure of whether I was trans or not, which has given me the confidence to come out.
What I am saying is, yeah there are a lot of kids that get bullied in school that then also get bullied online. But I can't imagine that I am the only kid that was ever bullied/octrasized for which social media was a reliever that made me less lonely/sad.
This is by far my favorite interview you’ve ever done.
I do agree to some extent but.... Every teenager I know has a smartphone and social media. I also see the downside of one teenager not having that. As a teacher I do see much bullying and excluding someone who doesn't have social media or even a smartphone. So isn't that damaging? A student of mine is really being bullied because of it and is very depressed, even suicidal. I don't think it is as easy as: take the phone/social media away because than other problems will come up. Kids/teenagers are horrible to each other.
i appreciate ur comment :)
Guarantee the kid doesn't have any hobbies or pursuits to give meaning to their life. I didn't have a phone at all until my freshman year of highschool and my first smartphone was going into my sophomore year. I didn't care because I had other interests. It didn't matter what other people were doing. If kids have nothing then shocker they feel lonely and outcast.
Haidt agrees.
The whole point of his argument is that it has to be top down.
"No children in this school can have smartphones" full stop.
Of course kids will be mean to each other, you can't stop that. Trying to stop all aggression is a bad thing - a classic teacher move though haha.
But bullying is also worse when everybody has phones.
Especially when autism exists. The internet didn't create autism. There are different reasons for mental health issues and lack of people being social. Life is nuanced.
As someone who was born in ‘95. I was part of the last cohort of kids to not get exposed to social until i was already an older teenager. I spent a lot of my time outside with friends in elementary and middle school. Social media wasn’t a thing besides myspace/facebook and early youtube. Everyone that had a phone could only call and text. It wasn’t until the latter half of high school where social media started popping off and people were getting smartphones but influencers and companies marketing on those platforms was still in uncharted territory. Plus covid didn’t really affect my education besides my last semester since i was in grad school but it did impact it going into the job market during lockdown.
So many times I've thought about how fortunate I am to have been born when I was. I lived through the transition between the industrial age and the information age. I can pull knowledge from both sides, recognizing the benefits and the disadvantages in either way of thinking, and I can choose the best approach for myself. It's going to be very difficult for the younger generations to do that, because it's hard to grasp something you've never experienced.
20:21 AGREED. I've thought about this before since middle school (now I've graduated high school) that I'm so grateful my childhood was still filled with playing with my parents or outside with my friends.
A few years back, I had somebody call me up and asked to do a survey.
The first question was, how many hours do you spend on Facebook?The smallest amount was two.
I said "two I only spend about a half hour on facebook."
In a disbelieving voice, the surveyor asked, "You only spend a half hour a day on facebook."
I said a day. "I meant in a week. I only spend about five minutes a day."
Since then, I've been on facebook even less time.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” - Lao Tzu
25-year-old female here, who only ever used social media because of college (needed it to look normal when finding a roommate, and to fit in socially). After I finished college, I deleted all of my social media (except for RUclips lol), and I have been so much happier without it. I have friends who are using it, and I don’t judge that, but for me personally it was very toxic and caused a lot of negative comparisons, so I finally removed myself after I no longer felt it was beneficial. It was isolating at first, but now I have a small circle of friends who love me without needing a constant photo reminder of my existence. It helps that I am an introvert though. I have a four-year-old half sister, and I worry for her future.
Clean thinker , this is what we need.
This is so fascinating as an elder Gen Z I managed to grow up playing outdoors and graduated college right before Covid so I didn’t lose that much of my youth but social media definitely fucked me up. I only just finally quit all social media and it was 2 weeks of misery but my attention span is back. I have ADHD and I find it a lot easier to focus now that short form content that gives me a quick dopamine hit isn’t as easily accessible
My brother recently made a good point by saying that if you need a notification to see it, it's not important. I recently turned off notifications for most of my apps. It gave me time to focus on more important things in life.
Such a great conversation between two highly intelligent people and fantastic speakers and listeners, thank you gentlemen. I do agree with Dr Mike's observations and concerns about authoritarian approach to "controlling" the internet.
I have two very young children and am currently trying to gather as much information on these topics so I can make good parenting decisions as they grow up ❤
I am so glad I listened to this and will definitely check the books out! As a GenX mom of GenZ kids and a preschool teacher, I can definitely see the effect of the internet on our kids. Thankfully my sons (all out of high school) are pretty well adjusted, but they still have their struggles with technology (mostly staying on it for too long). I even find myself wondering where the time has gone when I've just been randomly scrolling and watching shorts/reels. I work with low-income families (many of the parents are GenZ) and it is just different. They really don't know how to communicate outside of their phones! We teach mostly social-emotional skills in our classrooms because our kids lack those abilities. We are now getting students that were born during the pandemic, so not quite as socialized as in the past. It is going okay, but some days are tough! There is always hope. I look forward to reading this book. Thank you for addressing this!
9:25 i remember starting spanish class when i was 14 and like inherently knowing that my crucial language period had already passed bc i couldn’t pick it up in the way id used to pick things up so i was mad that our district didn’t start languages until high school. so idk when it passed, but i totally knew at 14 that it had passed.
Mikes family is so lucky to have him not just cause he is a doctor because he is such a great friendly man
Social media and the internet messed me up. There was a time when my social anxiety was so bad I didn't even know how to communicate with my family. Now its a little bit better, but id still consider this the lowest ive ever been. All because of the internet addiction i can't seem to or want to ger rid of
You’re not going to get kids away from social media. No matter what you do they’re gonna find ways to access it/the information it brings. The important thing to do is stop wasting energy trying to control it and put that energy into teaching your kids how to deal with what they experience. You can’t shield them, you have to teach them the responsible way to deal with their emotions themselves. It’s a new world and we have to adapt. Is it the best thing? No. But it’s what we have.
Bullied on the weekend - what a nightmare!!!
Doctor's being pressured by social media reviews - YIKES!!!
What an eye-openning interview.
The problem with these kinds of conversations is they generalize too much. Not everyone born around the same time is going to experience the same types of things. I don't really buy into the whole generational biases that most people seem to, it's just not productive and it reduces everyone into categories and stereotypes that is not going to apply to everyone.
Ya but you're going to spend forever trying to specify for each individual, that's why we generalize because it covers the general population.
@@benstanfill363 That would be a much better system than we have now. There should be individualism in the healthcare system and education system.
It's better to frame this discussion in terms of public health and societal trends, rather than whether or not it chimes into _your specific_ personal experience, or those of specific individuals. From a public health perspective, there _are_ significant differences between the mental health of different age groups, and those differences are generational (i.e. 15 year olds are more troubled now than 15 year old were 50 years ago). That won't apply to everyone, in the same way not everyone who smokes dies of lung cancer.
Explaining that requires thinking about things in terms of generations. Explaining the trends _without_ reference to generations is difficult and less effective.
I got on to social media way too young and it definitely changed me a lot through my formative years. Combine that with a messed up household and things got roughhh
Yaaaaas to all of this. Thank you, Dr. Mike and Jonathan Haidt, for this episode. Hopefully many people who don't read books do watch this. Many of my fellow Millennial mothers around me DO NOT read books, only bits and pieces (of often dubious quality) from their social media feeds. They are so deep in their own social media addictions that they don't understand how they're being negatively affected let alone their children. These are women, who like me, have postgraduate education but have at least temporarily shelved our careers for motherhood. We have time to read! We have a strong work ethic. We can process complex ideas. We want to be good moms. But it's rare for me to find someone who reads nonfiction and wants to actually talk about serious stuff like this, even when it directly affects our children. To bring up these uncomfortable topics is often to be viewed as a paranoid Debbie Downer. If the parents can't even get it together, it gives me little hope for our kids.
It's just nice to see two people having a friendly and reasonable discussion, even if they disagree (in part).
As an early zoomer, I understand the dangers of virtual world for child development. However, it can be really useful for education if used right. I’ll give an example from my own life: I didn’t have a free access to the internet until 14 or so and my parents also didn’t allow me to enjoy gaming (even after we got home internet) because they believed that it will impact my grades at school. As a consequence, my peers understand computers much better that I do, they know how to install or reinstall programs, protect their security, some of them can even program a bit (just needed that to buff some specs for gaming, apparently). They also have polished their English while I had to go to some school that specialises on English and go to multiple abroad programs (which costed a fortune for my parents). I honestly think I could save a lot of money and be more educated in IT if my parents would have given me a bit more of freedom. I think it was overprotective of them and now I feel falling behind. So yeah, how about not banning all internet for kids? At the very least the access to computers and digital literacy should be granted, imo.
I agree. Or at least I want to keep this in mind. Perhaps better education of digital use is better than outright prohibition. Perhaps do prohibit social media until late age, but let access to digital tools (even if it's restricted access) and educate well on how to use them.
I had kids early, I was 19 when my oldest was born. My wife and I have managed to make it through some really hard years, but looking back on it now, I realize that I've had to take all the steps recommended to twenty year olds by Dr. Haidt just to make it through. I can't have hardly any notifications, I've taken risk by starting my own business, and the correct morning and night routine has been a godsend.
This man is a hero for our time.