Jonathan Haidt on Adjusting to Smartphones and Social Media | Conversations with Tyler
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- Опубликовано: 18 июн 2024
- In The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt explores the simultaneous rise in teen mental illness across various countries, attributing it to a seismic shift from a “play-based childhood” to a “phone-based childhood” around the early 2010s. He argues that the negative effects of this “great rewiring of childhood” will continue to worsen without the adoption of several norms and a more hands-on approach to regulating social media platforms.
But might technological advances and good old human resilience allow kids to adapt more easily than he thinks?
Jonathan joined Tyler to discuss this question and more, including whether left-wingers or right-wingers make for better parents, the wisest person Jonathan has interacted with, psychological traits as a source of identitarianism, whether AI will solve the screen time problem, why school closures didn’t seem to affect the well-being of young people, whether the mood shift since 2012 is not just about social media use, the benefits of the broader internet vs. social media, the four norms to solve the biggest collective action problems with smartphone use, the feasibility of age-gating social media, and more.
Recorded February 14th, 2024
Transcript and links: conversationswithtyler.com/ep...
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Tyler's comments about the young people he interviews is like someone saying childhood obesity isn't a problem because the national track and field team are in good shape.
Yeah you got the gist of it. I think Tyler was trying to shit test Jonathan’s assertion of causation (effect) from the correlation that Jonathan ks drawing upon with the available data. I suppose you could categorise this as a debate on effect sizes
Spot on
Glad to see the pushback to understand the debate, but Haidt is right about Tyler focusing on the very top performers, the benefit to them is really besides the point. I'm afraid his impression of young people has been extremely skewed. Tyler thinks AI could reduce screen time, because he's thinking of his own habits of absorbing massive amounts of information.
Sad but I agree
"Absorbs" or filters through? I have the impression (or hunch or suspicion) that Tyler reads books the way most people read online listicles -- glean keywords and scroll through as far as you can stomach, click to the next URL, and repeat the process.
-- Edit --
I should add that I respect Tyler's commitment to non-superficial content. But I think it's possible that that commitment might have something to do with Tyler's conception of himself or with others' fixation with his reading habits. That is, Tyler is successful in part because people know about or believe claims about his reading throughput. The underlying sociological context, then, is an incentive for Tyler to boost his book numbers but less so for him to pause and ruminate on the material he reads.
@@declupI think his book’s bibliographies, regular references to decade ago blog posts and unscripted podcast appearances demonstrate that he is in fact able to recall and interconnect much of what he reads. Not verbatim, of course, he is no Johnny van Neumann and he admits himself he doesn’t finish many books he starts but clearly he reads more than just superficially.
@@wealthassistant -- He does read constantly and broadly. He's intelligent, and I'm sure he reads more quickly than most, and he demonstrates he can recall key themes from books. However, he's also a person who signals that he prioritizes efficiency and maximization, and, although no one other than he can know for sure what his cognitive state or process is while reading, I still find it more plausible that he's adopted a get-as-much-value-as-quickly-as-possible reading strategy than a dogear-highlight-reread-pause-and-ruminate approach. Which is basically what fairly capable and intelligent people do with online articles. What sets him apart is his dedication to difficult reading material. That is eminently respectable (and quite profitable to his reputation) but not superhuman. And yet people routinely treat it as such. Haidt himself is a case in point.
@@wealthassistant-- He does read constantly and broadly. He's intelligent; I'm sure his natural reading speed is quicker than that of most; and he demonstrates he can recall key themes from books. However, he's also a person who signals (in this very interview even) that he prioritizes efficiency and maximization over much else. And, although no one other than he can know for sure what his cognitive state or process is while reading, I find it more plausible that he's adopted a get-in-get-out/headings-and-keywords/get-as-much-value-as-quickly-as-possible reading strategy rather than a dogear-highlight-pause-reread-savor-and-ruminate approach, the former being basically what all fairly capable, intelligent, and normal people do with online content. (Tyler's own various comments about his reading habits, as you mention, support this conclusion.)
What sets him apart, I suspect, isn't his WPM, but his dedication to the book medium and to sophisticated reading material. These commitments are eminently respectable (and quite profitable to his reputation), but they don't make him superhuman. And yet people routinely treat him as such. Haidt himself is a case in point.
Tyler’s hopes for AI solving the issue with social media implies a bizarre understanding of why children are using social media. It’s not a chore that is currently inefficient and can be addressed with content filtering/summaries.
Exactly. Great comment
Right, SM feeds their desire for human connection and delivers a junk food version.
Yes, when I heard this I found it hard to take his other arguments seriously.
Why is Tyler so bullish on A.I.? At moments during the interview, he sounded to me like somebody who'd made up his mind (for emotional or aesthetic reasons maybe) and was looking for ways to validate his opinion.
It would be like saying that a slot machine player should just give a budget to an AI to pull the handle for them, so the gambler can free up their time to do other things! This obviously completely takes away from the point of playing slots.
I haven't listened to much Tyler Cowen, but this one made me think, 'this man is an idiot'.
I'm sure he's not, but it's unbelievable to me that someone can have such a different instinctive response to social media, AI, and what constitutes a good life. I applaud Jon Haidt's care, precision and decency, and I hope his message spreads far and wide.
He is.
Wow, vigorous conversation! Agree with Jon Haidt's 4 norms:
(1) No smartphones before highschool
(2) No social media till 16
(3) Phone free schools
(4) More independence and play to children
Personally, I would bump up smart phones to 18 years old, but avoid all social media for life. I'm still unconvinced there's a societal benefit to social media that doesn't diminish other social goods (like dating in-person, joining a sports league, church attendance, getting married, etc). Phone-free schools should be a universal norm.
I would also make it illegal to record/photograph anybody and post it online without their consent. This seems obvious to me, but we are all so scared of being the next person to go viral for something negtive that we find it easier to just not take risks in life.
Really great episode. Tyler challenged the guest to be specific in a way that made me better understand his position. I'm pretty impressed with how Jonathan Haidt responded, because it was clear and reassuring that he had himself thought about Tyler's objections and wasn't just making up stuff on the spot.
We’ve been long time fans of Haidt, but took an educational approach to social media and cell phones which made all the difference.
Yup, it's the first one I've ever seen that the interviewer didn't just agree with everything Haidt said.
I went into this undecided, and came out of it fully agreeing with Haidt. Also, very unusual to see Tyler give such pushback.
Same here. Overall, I still think the evidence for the link (smartphones and anxiety) is pretty bleak, but Haidt is much deeper and thoughtful about it than I anticipated.
@@sanmagarinos Granted. That notwithstanding, age 16
universal + parental consent before seems like a reasonable idea even from a libertarian perspective. I like that haidt suggested that the enforcement should be left to companies. And 13 was an arbitrary age anyway
It's actually great to see a conversation where Haidt has some push back.
Tyler's pushback is unusual but understandable. I think he is generally pretty optimistic about technology and sees the benefits first hand. It seems like many of his personal and professional projects are built around technology and are supercharged by social media. Discussions of limiting social media, especially via government fiat, would probably negatively impact his professional networks. Haidt, however, is right to focus on the average rather than the exceptional here.
@@DandelionScribebut the pushback is “don’t you think AI will aggregate all the information that teenagers are seeking out and deliver it to them without screens?” Is a friggin bizarre objection. A long time ago Tyler started describing himself as autistic and I must say, that is a very “autistic” argument, that teenagers are seeking “information” instead of social engagement, imagery, and video.
I love Tyler and this is the worst set of takes I've seen him give. Even if you think Jonathan is wrong about the cause of adolescent depression, Tyler comes off as completely out of touch. He can't acknowledge any kind of pain and suffering on the part of young people because "AI will solve everything" and "I've seen a few top performing kids coming out of elite colleges." I am an AI optimist and the idea that AI will solve our emotional problems or cure our psychological frailty is ridiculous. That's probably the only thing, out of all things, that AI will never do.
I think he's playing devil's advocate
If smartphone addiction was purely information driven, then the AI suggestion might work. It is not purely information driven.
You're exactly right. It has increasingly become about designing addiction first and foremost. Haidt was correct when he said any sort of AI developments will be market driven, meaning cranking up user retention time
I’ve never seen Tyler make a point that is so obviously bad. I’m a huge Tyler fan but this makes me question his judgment. I don’t think he understands what motivates the average person/teenager. The images and video and social interaction are what are so addictive, teenagers aren’t using social media to read economics blogs/debates.
Appreciated the way Cowen challenged Haidt, since I largely am on Haidt's side, and it was exciting to see his positions put the test and Haidt have to defend them. One gaping lacuna in the conversation--both in Cowen's seeming awareness or factoring-in to his optimistic position, but also mostly ummentioned by Haidt--the highly addictive quality of social media. It's fine to say, "well kids will figure it out, just shut off the algorithm," or "sure, it will be a net benefit because we'll find out the best possible way to use it," without accounting for the billion-dollar-engineered algorithms aimed at explicitly hijacking human social and emotional responses. There is probably no one who has used soc media at this date who has not been pulled in at some point to the gaping maw of absolute jibber-jabber that constitutes so much of social media. One can say, "just ignore it," or "just use it when it's best," but Haidt's point and the wide experience of millions today, is that this is roughly equivalent to telling a crack addict to abstain at will, with rocks planted into every nook and cranny of his house. Needs to be some institutional support for parents with children on social media. The average person cannot be presumed to be a higher performer with stoic self-control.
Why don’t heroin addicts just quit if it’s so bad for them!
Like technology is the same as heroin. LOL
It's also illegal.
@@MikeBrady68That’s the point made. Tyler’s logic is to make it legal and people will recognize it’s bad for them and stop. That turns out to not work even when we’re talking adults and Tyler is suggesting kids will have the fortitude to resist all the harms of SM. Parents should not put that responsibility on their kids alone.
New to libertarian ideology?
It's one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard. Even if he was playing devil's advocate, it's dumb.
What in the world would an efficient AI summary of your TikTok feed look like?
Love Tyler and glad to hear both sides. But, Tyler seems quite ideological here while Haidt has some data.
Seems Tyler is trying to defend who he is/was ... a self motivated geek, a former "amazing kid." The number of kids who fall in that demographic is very small. The rest of kids don't decide rationally to change as he describes. "But they should, like all these amazing kids that I interact with! And was myself!'" But, they don't ... and while he waits for the adjustment, there'll be hundreds of millions of 'collateral damage.' "Well, that's just the price of change. It'll come out better on the other side" I think he should go teach in a middle school, high school, ones that DON'T have a no phone policy. He'll immediately see the problem. - MS/HS teacher, and parent ...
Cowan is childless guy who is completely clueless about the reality of most kids. He’s unqualified to have this discussion.
@@kbkesq I dont think he's childless, he has a daughter. I don't know how young she is though.
Wow, terrific questions for Jonathan Haidt! The antagonistic tone was obnoxious, however.
Love how they're talking about the viral-ification of social media (around 29:00) with the advent of sharing and "likes" and as soon as Jonathan says "like button" an eye-catching swirly animation is triggered around the like button on this video. Such a perfect encapsulation of what they're talking about in that moment.
That must be these glorious AI solutions, soon to liberate us from spending time on social media
The workbook called 30 Days Without Social Media by Harper Daniels should be airdropped all over the place. Social media has become hypnotical media. Not only children, but their parents and most adults have lives integrated with social media.
Is Tyler doing a bit? Way to watch someone trying to be as adamant as they possibly can be, lol.
That’s so quaint that Tyler thinks AI will reduce screen time. Clearly he isn’t addicted to social-media like the rest of us.
Screen time isn’t high because it takes long to find what you’re looking for. Screen time is high because people are addicted to social media, and they use it as a form of escapism.
Tyler sees the world through Tyler-coloured glasses….the vast majority of the youth population is severely lacking in discipline.
I agree with Haidt on most of the points, but I'm glad Tyler was so passionate about raising opposite views. I listened to Haidt on many podcasts, and he was never pushed enough to ackowledge "I might be wrong." Thank you for the great episode team.
Because he isn’t wrong, and Tyler came across uncharacteristically ideological and narrow here.
Until a viable AI solution is presented (I’m skeptical) parents should not just wait around ignoring the warning signs and expecting their kids to be their own first line of defense.
One of the feistiest episodes in recent times!
I know right, Tyler playing devil’s advocate really brought out the best of Johnothan
To be honest, I don’t think Tyler is playing devils advocate. It’s a legit difference in opinion
How do you know his real opinion? @@TheVistastube
Tyler often has intelligent and varied points to make. This time he just dug in and actually came across rather thick
The last episode that was so contentious was the British-Pakistani philosopher lady.
The question that Tyler wasn't asked about AI is: what will the incentives be for AI regarding this digest of posts that will liberate kids from hours of checking social media notifications? The incentive for social media is to lock in their "customers" so they look at lots of paid advertisements with billions of dollars up for grabs. Will AI be incentivized to perform a social good or by profit, with social effects as a distant second or third concern?
wow, this is the first tyler conversation where I don't have the impression he is the smartest person in the room. the obvious selection bias of his example doesn't even need mentioning
Just like Nietzsche, Tyler is basically saying this: "The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it. "
This fellow, Tyler, is. just being argumentative I think, because he has business interests dependent upon Social Media.
Young people use social media primarily as entertainment/content versus ways to actually socialize or learn (people use it for these as well but in a minority share). The content the algorithms produce can show people anywhere from hilarious jokes, beheadings, porn, or sports highlights depending on the day with the sole purpose being to keep you coming back for more. To say that it’s hard to understand the difference between the internet and social media is a red flag for anyone that actually uses these apps daily because you can log on for five minutes and be in a much worse mood because of it than you were before
He’s out of touch with the youth and is absorbed in his own bubble
He thinks people use social media to read about economics & philosophy
This topic triggers Tyler so much. lol
Good job by Mr Haidt to keep things composed. Tyler's push-backs at times seemed pretty blunt and blind to the issues facing the youth, but I guess that brought out more evidence and details in the conversation. It wasn't smooth at times but a good episode nonetheless.
I am a gen Z and everything Haidt said about social media is pretty much obvious to me and around me. Tyler is simply concerned about the fact that less people will be using social media so there will be less money to be made.
I think he’s concerned about unintended consequences and he has a very (survivorship) biased view of how kids are managing this. All the ones at his door are doing great so no problems!
44:01 I believe nixtamlazation prevents pellagra, which is a disease resulting from the lack of the B vitamin Niacin. Pellagra and scurvy have some symptoms in common.
This is good example of two very smart people challenging each other with the goal of getting to the truth.
You watched this and concluded Tyler is smart?
I do not find Tyler's argument very strong.
1. Taylor knows some Gen Z people that are better than Taylor himself was in his youth. Hence, no problem
2. Taylor thinks AI will solve the issues in two years anyway. Hence, no problem.
3. Taylor considers the difference between social media and the Internet bizarre.
4. If companies can be sued for allowing underage persons on the platform, the companies would bed sued so much that they would go bankrupt.
These are four really stupid statements. If Taylor does not sharpen up he can be replaced by AI-Taylor in two years time.
One of Taylor's points is that humanity will work out the problem with kids using social media. Haidt should have responded: "Yes agree. Humanity works out things. My book is part of the working out. Economists seem to think that the working out happens automatically. It does not. I want to speed up the working out. That's all"
Good professional discussion
The "efficient summary" proposal seems far too in line with Tyler's own academic habits, and not in line with a significant aspect of how people use e.g., TikTok. A significant portion of online interaction has social elements to it that couldn't be reduced to non-social information summaries.
is Tyler usually this dense?
1. the AI tech Tyler is talking about doesn't exist
2. there's no indication that the drivers of screen addiction (dopamine, social reinforcement) would even support a mediator like a theoretical AI agent
3. even if screens went 100% away, half the problem remains: lack of childhood independence and responsibility!
This ^^^^ 👏👏
And Tyler is assuming that you need to get X amount of info per day, and you're set. It doesn't work like that. The more you try to catch up with social media, the more you need. You never catch the dragon.
Would you rather he just agree with Haidt about everything, like every other interviewer does?
So far, most commenters seem to agree with Jonathan Haidt. Are there any opposite opinions? What are the best arguments against Haidt's thesis?
this was tough to listen to, Tyler gets triggered/emotionally activated, projecting his own biases, and comes across as way out of touch, and borderline rude at times. Good job from Haidt for maintaining composure.
good discussion though Tyler doesnt seem to incorporate the addiction element in his argument
Cowen might be the best podcaster in activity. He's wrong here and everybody can see it, but he's earnestly searching for the truth and not backing down from confrontation. This is not an extended advertisement for Haidt's book but a real debate.
The flow of data, even with AI, will still require a human being to grok the value of what's happening. The AI might reduce the data into digestible chunks, but that ignores the way spectacle draws in young people.
58:40, My biggest pushback on Tylers pov here is that we shouldn't expect that a businesses built under a period of no regulation to stay at current levels of scale. If Meta were to take on 1% of it's users litigation, then it doesn't get sued out of existence - but it probably would decrease in size, sure. But if the company were to have been started under the proposed regulations then would it have reached the scale it has currently, probably not. So I don't see the problem.
Also, Tyler you focused a lot on the end of the distribution performers - can we also just propose your AI argument back at you and say well, the highest performers will continue to gain performance gains from incredible AI's that can communicate their peers discoveries and meanwhile educate these kids better than any social media site would? I don't see social media as the forcing function here, but just better technology which anyone can access.
I live in East Asia (korea). No the effect isn't isolated to the anglosphere
Yeah, this got hard to listen to at the end. Tyler usually mixes in more light-hearted questions. And he seems unwilling to concede any of the substantiated problems with social media. At the end he shrugs his shoulders and says we cannot do anything and that humanity will adapt (partially due to AI). Seems a bit flippant.
Well, that was a day Haidt will never get back.
That was a great pushback from Tyler wrt social media regulations for kids/young adults. Many scholars seemingly have strong opinions on how something is intolerable but don't have a concrete view on what their ideal situation looks like
Haidt was too wordy at times. He should have countered "Your libertarian argument is a massive straw man. Government is already involved. Current age is 13 years. I want to raise the age to 16 years, unless there is a parental overrule. And companies should enforce the rule."
@@123axel123 Hard to respond to irrational points of view, perfectly, in real time. Haidt did well.
Tyler is afraid of government regulations, but thinks private regulations are just dandy. It's incoherent.
I have never seen this podcast before, so I don't know if he believes what he is saying or he is trying to play devil's advocate to challenge Haidt's proposition here.
If he actually believes it, strikes me as irrationally optimistic.
If not, this was not a great devil's advocacy 😅.
Has Tyler just bought hook line and sinker the "AI will solve everything" meme the tech executives are using to raise money at the moment? Huh....I thought he was smarter than that.
It's not a tech exec thing. Many domains have AI solutions today where there were none 2 years ago. We've seen serious breakthroughs.
although the idea that kids are going to get a summary from the AI on their social media accounts I think is wrong. Kids--and adults--are stuck in the loop of checking the notificaitons. I don't think people who are hooked will want the cliff notes version of their timelines. they want to be constantly checking in real time to be engaged.
Tyler definitely felt tone-deaf and agenda-driven here, which is a bit unfortunate. I was quite curious to hear some legitimate pushback against the anti-social-media rhetoric that is accepted as common wisdom these days. I think Tyler brings up a decent point w.r.t. humanity being able to withstand drastic social changes, and personally I think it is possible that society develops a more nuanced relationship with social media (as we have done with other vices, like gambling or alcohol). That said, Haidt's perspective was more compelling here, and I wish Tyler was a bit more reasonable in the discussion to give better counterpoints.
Aren’t questions like “should we let kids use phones in school” the wrong question?
Shouldn’t we be asking “why is class so boring that kids are on their phones/social media the whole time?"
Do kids have a problem with distraction when they’re playing soccer or enthralled in the hunger games series? No.
The prisoners are bored and not paying attention. Of course they’re on their phones. Take away the phones and they’re still bored and not paying attention.
Adults are the same. There are plenty of adults who don’t enjoy their jobs (bored) and so faff about on tiktok all day
Those of us fortunate enough to like our jobs don’t have superhuman discipline. We’re just engaged with our work. So it’s not a big problem
For the kids, this is just a sign that we’re doing a very poor job engaging them. I barely ever paid attention throughout my education, and most I had was a RAZR flip phone
I do think you have some good points here, but I kind of disagree here: "Shouldn’t we be asking “why is class so boring that kids are on their phones/social media the whole time?"" kids are going to want to be on their phone no matter what the class is about.
For a lot of kids nothing the class can be about would be interesting to them.
I have enjoyed other Cowen conversations. But this interview showed his limitations. He evidently spends time with the young technocratic elite and not much time with the average kid--kids who can't simply end their screen addictions by adopting timesaving AI agents. He also seems too interested in winning the argument, and not very interested in understanding what Haidt was actually trying to say. Disappointing.
The Sillicon valley elite like Marc Andressen think technology is the solution to everything in the world
“Loneliness is at an all time high and people are having a hard time making friends ?? No worries we’ll solve it by making sure they have their own personal A.I buddy 😎”
Tyler's valueless, simplistic, and misguided suggestion ("won't "AI" just fix everything in 1 year??") proves he's merely just a techno optimist. His response to reader's question about this on MR was unintelligible economics theory jargon. As if he didn't even read The Anxious Generation, which is written with utter clarity in terms that everyone understands - except Tyler apparently.
Facts too often get in the way of Tyler's contrarian stance. Pushback is good, and we should all challenge each other, but the truth is the truth, and Tyler does not seem interested in that. Playing devil's advocate for the sake of playing devil's advocate is just annoying.
Johnathan is too intelligent to get pigeonholed into right or left 😂
He is a left winger that has realised that the left is crazy, but he still thinks he can stand in the middle.
The lack of understanding of statistics and of significance of correlation coefficients of the interviewer is appalling. Shouldn’t economists know of such stuff?
18:20 Cowan seems like a single childless guy. The kids are addicted to screens. AI makes them more addicted not less. This is so obvious.
Haidt made some interesting comments: Right wingers make better parents. Conservative children appear to be insulated from the effects of social media. Suicide leaps when the school year starts.
Maybe Haidt is missing the root cause of the problem that social media exposes?
I think it's unwise and dangerous of him to want politicians to regulate social media in this way, disregarding parents' wishes. The regulations we've already had forced me to create fake accounts for my children online when they were young. I often could not get past the legislative roadblocks for services I wanted them to access. It should be my choice, not Washington's. I'm glad Tyler pushed him to be clear that he wanted to use the clumsy iron first of legislation.
I waited as long as could to get smart phones for my kids. Ironically, it was the government schools that pushed me to buy my kids smart phones sooner than I wanted. Teachers assumed that all the kids had them and gave assignments during class that required a phone. My kids were spending extra time in the evenings trying to catch up on the computer.
I like Haidt and have always found him interesting. I don't mind if he uses persuasion, but this is another example of a very smart person trying to use force to impose what he thinks is best on society.
The government legislates many things. Why is there an age requirement for smoking then? The parents should just decide, according to your dumb logic.
This host is serving up pseudoreligious libertarian platitudes and appears to despise data and fact.
Not sure that is what is going on here. Tyler has had many non libertarian political and economic guests on his show and he rarely serves up LP platitudes despite huge disagreements. Plus this discussion is in regards to regulating what children are exposed to as opposed to adults so libertarianism doesn't apply since children are subject to government regulation even under libertarianism. This seems more of a personal thing with Tyler than ideological.
@@wolflarson71I don’t think libertarians would agree that children are excluded from government regulations. Many favor home schooling and reducing child work restrictions for white collar jobs. But then they have to bite the bullet when the free choices children make lead to worse outcomes.
@@wealthassistant I don’t see a principled argument against social media for kids if it’s as detrimental as the argument put forth here. Parents don’t get the say when it comes to kids smoking or drinking so don’t see the difference in this case.
Tyler doesn't behave like this often, but he's done it enough I rarely listen to his podcast anymore. He gets irrational during chats where ideology is more important to him than reality.
It's stupid frankly. I was surprised to see it in a chat with Haidt, who himself leans further right the older he gets.
@@that_heretic I still don't think it's ideological. It seems more of a personal connection he has to social media more than anything else.
Not to pile on here but I listen to Tyler on podcasts frequently and this is by far the dumbest and worst performance by him ever.
My opinion of him dropped dramatically in just a little over one hour. He was that bad!
He makes an especially egregious version of the tragic mistake many public intellectuals make: the world would have all its problems solved if people were more like me. Worse, he really seems to think a meaningful proportion of young people really are like him..sheesh..
Haidt skews his figures by restricting the scope of his presentation to figures that go back no further than the year 2000 to make it look as if there is a clear connection between smartphones and social media and the uptick reported depression and self-harm.
In the 1980's and 1990's the recorded rates of reported youth depression and self-harm were actually higher at their peak than they are now. All of this long before modern social media and smartphones even existed. And if you go back even further than that you find other peaks that are almost as high but bear in mind some of them are likely to be even higher than the official figures because in the early 20th Century depression and self-harm rates for groups such as blacks or immigrants were very likely not much figured into those studies. As for suicide, Haidt never tells you that suicide rates remained stable or regressed in other first world countries with access to social media, or that US suicide rates are almost at any even level with those of the 1950s.
Gee, that whole "we are living in a time of unprecedented teen depression and self-harm" claim of Jonathan Haidt's is suddenly not looking so unprecedented now, is it?
this tyler dude is a little bit dim.
Haidts preference for social engineering as a solution strikes me as naive.
Tyler is a cave man on governance, ethics, social development good grief and getting outraged with no data. Sorry Tyler, without data you're just another person with an opinion
One other point. Aside from his terrible performance here, Cowen once again demonstrates the utter worthlessness of libertarian ideology to deal realistically with social problems.
If you ever want to see why libertarianism is an ideology kept alive by public intellectuals working in donor funded think tanks with almost no ability to touch grass in the real world, spend an hour watching this.
Cowen is always better than this when he's not an orthodox libertarian.
Clearly Cowan does not have kids of his own.
Ask this guy why he has no kids. I get a creepy vibe from Cowan and his justification of kids on social media being s good thing.
Tyler is nasty