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StarTalk Radio

The Anxious Generation with Jonathan Haidt

with Jonathan Haidt

Published October 3, 2025
View Show Notes

About This Episode

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Gary O'Reilly, and Chuck Nice interview social psychologist Jonathan Haidt about his book "The Anxious Generation" and the mental health crisis among Gen Z. Haidt argues that a combination of overprotected, low-risk real-world childhoods and underprotected exposure to smartphones and social media has driven sharp rises in anxiety, depression, self-harm, and loneliness, especially among girls. He outlines evidence for the crisis, explains developmental brain mechanisms, details platform-specific harms, and proposes four social norms and policy changes to roll back the "phone-based childhood," while warning about emerging AI chatbot toys aimed at children.

Topics Covered

Social media and online platforms Anxiety Mental health Parenting and child development Childhood autonomy Unstructured play Smartphones and mobile technology Loneliness Online safety Education system

Disclaimer: We provide independent summaries of podcasts and are not affiliated with or endorsed in any way by any podcast or creator. All podcast names and content are the property of their respective owners. The views and opinions expressed within the podcasts belong solely to the original hosts and guests and do not reflect the views or positions of Summapod.

Quick Takeaways

  • Long-running survey data and hospital records show a sharp, cross-national rise in anxiety, depression, and self-harm among teens-especially girls-beginning around 2012-2013, coinciding with the spread of smartphones and social media.
  • Haidt argues that children are "anti-fragile": they need real-world risks, conflicts, and independence to develop resilience, but Western societies have overprotected them offline while leaving them exposed and vulnerable online.
  • He distinguishes between "defend mode" and "discover mode" in the brain, noting that many Gen Z youth default to defend mode-high threat sensitivity, low risk-taking, and elevated anxiety-partly due to their developmental environment.
  • Different platforms harm kids in different ways: Instagram fuels social comparison and body-image issues for girls, TikTok erodes attention with highly addictive short videos, Snapchat facilitates risky contacts and sextortion, and Discord/Roblox can expose kids to unknown adults.
  • Haidt proposes four coordinating norms to reverse the "phone-based childhood": no smartphones before high school, no social media before 16, phone-free schools, and much more real-world independence and free play.
  • He emphasizes that parents face a collective action problem engineered by tech companies that exploit fear of missing out, so solutions require coordinated norms, legal changes, and school policies, not just individual willpower.
  • Wealthier, more educated parents are already restricting tech and organizing "playberhoods," which risks deepening inequality as poorer kids remain more exposed and distracted by devices.
  • Haidt warns that AI chatbots embedded in toys and apps for children, promoted as a cure for loneliness, are likely to worsen developmental problems and represent tech companies trying to "solve" a crisis they helped create.

Podcast Notes

Introduction and framing of the social media question

Hosts and setup for the episode

Neil deGrasse Tyson introduces the show as StarTalk Special Edition with co-hosts Gary O'Reilly and Chuck Nice[1:43]
The hosts joke about their roles and ages, framing themselves as "older men" discussing youth and social media[1:00]

Central question: Is social media bad for us and for kids?

Gary explains that he and producer Lane Unsworth brainstormed the question, "Is social media bad for us?"[2:22]
They note that some people love and need social media while others question its value[2:41]
Gary specifies that the focus will be on the impact of social media on younger generations, the first raised with it from childhood[2:59]
They sarcastically remark that the world is "so much better off" now, signaling skepticism about benefits[3:05]
Gary asks whether there is an "anxious generation" and if they are more anxious than previous generations, and what can be done[3:31]

Introducing Jonathan Haidt and his thesis

Guest introduction and credentials

Gary introduces Jonathan Haidt as a social psychologist at NYU's Stern School of Business who heads the Tech and Society Lab[3:52]
He highlights Haidt's 2024 book "The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness"[4:13]
Neil welcomes Haidt and mentions he has admired Haidt's earlier work on political divides in psychology[4:38]
• Neil notes Haidt previously worked at the University of Virginia and later moved to New York City

Neil's question: Data versus grumpy-old-man complaints

Neil jokes about having a "bone to pick" because he blurbed a prior book but not this one, then pivots to a serious question[5:16]
He asks Haidt what data sources support the claim of an "anxious generation" beyond old men complaining about youth[5:43]
Neil also asks whether every generation has had a disturbed subset and what specifically grounds Haidt's conclusions[5:59]

Evidence for a youth mental health crisis

Longitudinal survey and hospitalization data

Haidt explains that social scientists draw on multiple sources of evidence, including long-running national surveys[6:16]
• US government-supported surveys since the 1970s track self-reports of depression and anxiety using scales and questions
From the 1990s to around 2010-2011, mental health indicators were very stable, moving only slightly up and down[6:41]
Around 2012-2013, the graphs show a sharp "elbow" and then steep increases in reported anxiety and depression[6:51]
Haidt notes that the rise is specific to internalizing disorders such as anxiety and depression, not all possible problems[7:01]
He cites CDC data showing large increases in emergency room visits for severe self-harm, especially among girls, starting around 2012-2013[7:15]
• Hospitalizations for girls cutting themselves severely have risen 50% to 150% depending on subgroup

Observations from campuses and workplaces

As a college professor, Haidt noticed around 2014-2015 that incoming students seemed very different from earlier cohorts[7:29]
• Previous students (millennials) liked jokes, fun in class, and typical campus socializing
• The new students were much more anxious, more easily offended, and brought in concepts like microaggressions, bias response teams, and trigger warnings that were absent just a few years earlier
Haidt says people in business who hire Gen Z report similar patterns of heightened anxiety and fragility[8:09]

Cross-national patterns and the technology hypothesis

He emphasizes that similar mental health collapses occurred simultaneously in the UK, Canada, and Australia[8:34]
• Because the changes appear across multiple English-speaking countries at the same time and in similar ways, especially among girls, he infers a cross-national cause
If it were only the US, many localized explanations would be plausible, but cross-national timing points toward shared factors[8:45]
Haidt credits psychologist Jean Twenge for first identifying the sharp graph changes and notes that they began considering technology as the likely cause together[8:56]

Defend mode vs discover mode and Gen Z's shift

Haidt introduces a framework of two mental configurations: "defend mode" and "discover mode"[9:56]
• Defend mode corresponds to the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS), activating fight-or-flight when threats are perceived
• Discover mode corresponds to the Behavioral Activation System (BAS), engaging curiosity and openness, like a child in a candy shop
He notes that college students have traditionally been more in discover mode-wanting fun, exploration, and risk-taking[10:02]
By contrast, those born after 1995 show a population-level shift toward defend mode, with greater threat sensitivity and reluctance to take risks[10:08]
Haidt clarifies he is not criticizing Gen Z; rather, he argues that adults overprotected them and denied them opportunities to develop toughness through experience[10:55]
• He says parents and society "overprotected the hell out of them" in the real world while underprotecting them online
He cites survey data showing about 30% of teenage girls have an anxiety or depression disorder, calling it "gigantic" and the new normal, and noting that about 20% say they have thought about suicide in the last year[10:35]

Overprotection, risk, and anti-fragility in childhood

Legal and cultural shifts toward safety in the 1980s-1990s

Haidt mentions the 1980s insurance crisis and "lawsuit fever," where everyone sued if anyone got hurt[12:50]
• He gives the example that his high school's pole vault event was canceled after he graduated in 1981 because it was deemed too dangerous in the litigious climate
Playgrounds were increasingly padded and engineered to be as safe as possible, but this removed chances for kids to learn how not to get hurt[12:56]
Haidt argues that when children grow up in environments where they cannot get hurt, they do not develop responsibility and embodied skills for avoiding injury[13:15]

Anti-fragility and why stressors are necessary

Haidt introduces the concept of "anti-fragility" from Nassim Taleb: systems that get stronger from stressors, not weaker[14:28]
• Fragile things like eggs must be handled gently; anti-fragile systems, like the immune system, require repeated challenges to develop properly
He explains that overprotecting children from dirt and germs cripples their immune systems, because they do not get the experiences needed to build antibodies[14:59]
By analogy, life has always been hard and full of early death, so children need to face and master small threats and difficulties that scale up over time[15:27]
He argues that beginning in the 1980s and accelerating in the 1990s, adults blocked this developmental process by tightly supervising and protecting children[15:24]

Loss of resilience and social skills

Gary frames this as children no longer developing a psychological "armor" or mental protection that lets them cope with injuries or social setbacks without meltdown[14:11]
Haidt affirms that risk is a crucial ingredient in a successful childhood and that kids must learn to handle themselves through minor injuries and conflicts[13:47]

Understanding anxiety, depression, and their link

What anxiety looks like in behavior and physiology

In response to Neil's request, Haidt distinguishes fear as a fundamental emotion with an emergency survival function[20:31]
He explains that part of fear involves an alarm system that scans the environment for threats; most of what we fear is learned, with some preparedness for things like snakes[20:50]
When the brain becomes set to interpret almost any new environment as dangerous, a person lives in constant high alert, elevated cortisol, and defend mode[21:12]
This chronic threat monitoring reduces learning, openness to friendship, and quality of life, and can lead to panic attacks when small cues trigger exaggerated responses[21:40]

Why anxiety and depression often coincide

Haidt notes that in clinical psychology, anxiety and depressive disorders tend to co-occur both experientially and genetically[21:54]
Some people are genetically more prone to both depression and anxiety; which manifests depends partly on life circumstances[22:06]
Being anxious for a long time makes depression more likely, although many with anxiety disorders are not clinically depressed[22:24]

Collective action problems and tech companies' role

Moral psychology perspective and blame

Haidt, as a moral psychologist, says that when many people suddenly start doing something harmful, we should look to structural causes rather than assume everyone became bad[23:06]
He frames the current situation as tech companies placing families in a series of collective action problems[23:20]
Example: A parent might want to deny a smartphone to a daughter, but the child argues that everyone else has one, creating strong social pressure to give in[23:34]
Haidt asserts that companies like Meta deliberately exploit adolescent fear of missing out to increase adoption[23:52]
He stresses that while parents hold responsibility, they face an environment full of temptations, addictions, and engineered social pressures that make resisting difficult[24:08]
He explicitly says he does not primarily blame parents but blames a few tech companies first and foremost[24:18]

Psychologists working in tech and dopamine engineering

Neil points out that many people with training like Haidt's work in tech companies, exploiting psychological vulnerabilities for profit[25:16]
Haidt acknowledges that many social and developmental psychologists joined Silicon Valley, especially in marketing[25:24]
He notes that from the 1990s through the mid-2010s, many were techno-optimists who believed companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook would improve the world[25:16]
He says engineers and product teams talk about dopamine and explicitly shape reinforcement patterns to hook users[25:34]
He cites internal Facebook documents showing they studied adolescent brain development and recognized early teens as the "sweet spot" because emotional systems develop before self-control[26:06]
Despite nominal minimum ages like 13, companies have plans to reach children much younger, including through playdates[26:24]
Haidt describes a "race to the bottom" where if one company does not capture 10-year-olds, another will, making kids the victims of this competition[26:36]

Brain development, myelination, and sensitive periods

What is myelination and why it matters

Neil asks Haidt to define myelination, the term he used related to frontal lobe development[26:56]
Haidt explains that the human brain reaches about 90% of its size by age six, but later development is about wiring rather than growth[27:02]
Children are born with more neurons than adults; through experience and repeated practice, frequently used circuits strengthen while others are pruned[27:41]
He describes neurons with cell bodies, axons, and dendrites; axons transmit signals that become more efficient when coated with a fatty myelin sheath[27:48]
Myelination acts like insulation on a cable, making circuits faster and more "locked in" for life[28:20]
He likens it to grooves in a record or sled tracks in snow: once carved, patterns are easier to follow and harder to change[28:34]

Sensitive periods and puberty as a critical window

Haidt introduces the idea of sensitive (or critical) periods when specific brain systems are open for particular kinds of learning[29:37]
• Language learning has a critical period; children isolated from language until adolescence never fully acquire speech
He says social development has a later sensitive period, roughly from ages six or seven through puberty[29:51]
Puberty is described as an incredibly important period where children enter with a child's brain and exit with an adult brain that is more myelinated and less plastic[29:58]
Because social circuits are being wired during puberty, he argues strongly against children being on social media during that period[30:24]
He advocates a minimum age of 16 for social media so kids can get through puberty having socialized mostly through real-life play, arguments, cooperation, and conflict resolution[30:24]
Instead, many kids now spend most of their time on screens, less than half as much time with friends as previous generations, being trained by algorithms through stimulus-response-dopamine loops[30:48]
Haidt says this is why he talks about rewiring both children's brains and the structure of childhood itself[31:06]

Is the new digital skill set just different, not worse?

Neil's "different, not lesser" challenge

Neil suggests that perhaps younger generations simply have a different skill set suited to a screen-based world, which might enable achievements older generations cannot imagine[33:28]
He asks why this difference should be seen as worse rather than just different[33:28]

Haidt's rebuttal: developmental requirements and observed outcomes

Haidt acknowledges that about ten years earlier, many people thought in terms of "digital natives" and believed constant micro-interactions would make kids super social[33:54]
He states that this optimistic scenario did not occur; instead, evidence suggests humans require embodied, physical interaction to develop core capacities[34:59]
He uses an analogy: trying to teach kids to walk via instructional videos would not work; they have to physically practice walking[34:54]
Haidt says he does not see areas where Gen Z is performing better due to social media; he notes they drink, smoke, drive, and take fewer risks, which is often praised but he interprets as rooted in anxiety and screen-bound lives[35:12]
He connects adolescent risk-taking like acquiring cigarettes or alcohol with learning to step into unfamiliar, risky situations-experiences many kids now largely avoid[35:39]

Internet vs social media and the 2010-2015 shift

Benefits of the early internet

In response to Neil's point about marginalized kids finding online communities, Haidt agrees that the early internet was amazing for connecting people with rare interests or conditions[37:08]
He distinguishes "the internet" broadly, which he says most people still love, from specific social media platforms with algorithmic feeds[36:57]

How social media changes the equation

Haidt argues that community-building benefits come from access to the internet itself, not from being on algorithm-driven platforms[37:19]
He describes social media platforms as systems where algorithms select emotionally intense content from strangers, which is not the same as mutual community-building[37:28]
He claims that the more time kids spend in these online "connections," the fewer real friends they have and the lonelier they feel[37:44]

Timeline of smartphone and social media adoption among teens

In 2010, few kids had smartphones; most had flip phones used for calls and texts, which Haidt considers fine[38:00]
Key developments: 2010 saw the first front-facing iPhone camera and the launch of Instagram[38:07]
Girls especially joined Instagram after Facebook bought it in 2012, while high-speed internet spread[38:15]
By 2015, nearly everyone had a smartphone with social media in their pocket, and daily phone use for kids ballooned toward many hours per day[38:21]
Haidt estimates current averages around eight hours a day on phones plus additional time on TV and computers, meaning much of the day is spent alone on screens[38:28]
He rejects the claim that such platforms give kids community, saying instead that they addict kids, take up their days, and often feed them content that contributes to suicidal thoughts[38:41]

Future generations, parenting, and the loss of play knowledge

Gen Z as future parents and reliance on grandparents

Haidt notes that Gen Z (born ~1996/1997 onward) is now entering its late twenties and starting to have children[39:41]
He points out these will be the first parents in history raising children without having had a "normal human childhood" themselves, including free play[40:09]
He says many kids today "don't even know how to play"; when pushed outside, they may not know what to do and instead gather and go on their phones[40:13]
Haidt predicts grandparents will become increasingly important as repositories of cultural knowledge about offline play and adventure[40:32]

Community, institutions, and responsibility for change

Loss of community adults and initiation rituals

Haidt notes that across cultures, initiation rites for turning boys into men and girls into women are typically run by other adults, not parents[40:29]
• Girls' first menstruation often triggers involvement by adult women teaching them the "secrets of womanhood"; boys are taken and socialized by men, often through painful or challenging rites
In modern societies, while formal rites diminished, kids still interacted with many adults via activities like Boy Scouts, sports coaches, neighbors, and community groups[42:11]
In the 1990s, revelations of sexual abuse and cover-ups led to a societal overreaction: a strong norm of keeping kids away from unrelated adults, particularly men[42:19]
Haidt says this contributed to a situation where children are now raised mostly inside their homes with screens, without broader community involvement[42:14]

Legal fears and criminalizing independence

Haidt emphasizes that parents face legal risk for granting kids independence and cites a Georgia case[43:29]
• A 10-year-old walked alone to town to buy candy; when police found him and the mother seemed unconcerned, she was arrested and jailed for allowing the walk
Such cases, he says, put "the fear of God" into parents about letting kids go out alone, reinforcing helicopter parenting[43:50]

Who is responsible for leading change?

Gary clarifies he is asking not who to blame, but who will lead society out of the current situation-federal, state, community, schools, or families[44:58]
Haidt argues that because large structural and economic factors drove the shift, change cannot rest on individual parents alone[45:49]
He says laws must be changed so that granting kids age-appropriate independence cannot be treated as neglect or abuse[45:21]
He encourages families to help each other by sending kids to relatives and neighbors and allowing movement among homes rather than keeping them isolated on couches with screens[45:21]

Haidt's four norms to roll back the phone-based childhood

Overview and rationale

Haidt presents four social norms that, if widely adopted, can collectively roll back the "phone-based childhood"[47:45]
He frames them as coordination tools: hard for any one family alone, but powerful when communities move together[47:05]

Norm 1: No smartphones before high school

Haidt says do not give a child a smartphone as their first phone; let them get through most of puberty first[47:52]
He recommends flip phones, basic phones, or phone watches that allow calls and limited functions but not full internet access[48:08]

Norm 2: No social media before 16

Haidt advocates a minimum age of 16 for social media, noting that it would be easier with supportive laws but can begin as a family norm[48:14]
He suggests strict enforcement: if a child secretly installs Instagram before 16, loss of the phone for a month as a serious consequence[48:24]

Norm 3: Phone-free schools

Haidt calls it "completely insane" that until recently students watched TikTok, porn, and other videos during class by hiding phones in books[48:42]
He notes that lunchrooms and hallways in many schools were quiet because students were absorbed in phones instead of socializing[48:48]
He and his team have been actively pushing phone-free schools legislation, and he reports growing momentum as teachers and others recognize the problem[48:55]

Norm 4: More independence, free play, and responsibility

The fourth norm is to restore much more real-world independence, free play, and responsibility for children[49:37]
He envisions kids spending school time interacting, playing sports at lunch, and walking around neighborhoods instead of sitting alone on screens[49:53]
Combined, the four norms would mean most kids are not on smartphones until around 14, not on social media until 16, and spend more of puberty practicing in-person social skills[49:47]

Distinguishing good and bad screen time at home

Synchronous socializing vs group chats

Chuck describes his Gen Alpha daughter socializing online via computer and tablet (without apps), laughing with friends, and says she calls it "hanging out"[50:23]
Haidt responds that synchronous calls where kids laugh and talk together (like telephone calls) are fine and count as real connection[50:48]
He warns that problems arise when kids move into large group texts with 30-200 people, where interactions become performance-based and anxiety-provoking[51:03]

Haidt's two categories of good screen time

Haidt tells Chuck to think not in terms of total screen time limits but in terms of "good" vs "bad" screen time[52:35]
Good screen time category 1: direct, face-to-face communication like phone calls or FaceTime, especially one-on-one or small groups[51:36]
Good screen time category 2: long stories such as movies, since humans have always used extended stories to raise children[52:40]
He says watching a couple of movies a week, especially together, is fine because it involves sustained attention rather than rapid stimulus-response[53:01]
Bad screen time includes TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts-short-form videos that he labels as "horrible" for kids[53:16]
He advises zero exposure to such short-video platforms for children, contrasting this with his own family rule of no social media in the house until his son was 18[53:17]
Haidt tells Chuck that avoiding social media likely did his son's brain "a big favor"[53:39]

Platform-specific harms: Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox

Instagram and social comparison for girls

Haidt calls Instagram the most powerful way to destroy a girl's self-esteem and sense of beauty[57:19]
He explains that it puts girls into constant competition and comparison, not just with classmates but with thousands of gorgeous peers and influencers[57:23]
He believes Instagram is the biggest single driver of depression and anxiety in teenage girls, especially preteens[57:41]

TikTok and attention/"brain rot"

Haidt describes TikTok as more about quick entertainment and extremely addictive due to its slot-machine-like short-video format[57:50]
He says that on TikTok, if a video is not interesting in five seconds, users swipe away until they find something that gives a big hit of amusement[58:18]
He states that TikTok teaches kids that five seconds of boredom is intolerable and must be escaped, eroding their ability to sustain attention[58:18]
Haidt notes that kids themselves call the effect "brain rot" and links global declines in test scores since 2015 to such attention-fragmenting platforms[58:23]

Snapchat, sextortion, and drug access

Haidt says Snapchat encourages lots of small interactions and disappearing content, making it a favored tool for adults who want to contact children[58:45]
He states that most kids on Snapchat have thousands of "friends," many of whom are strangers, and the app pushes users to connect with friends of friends[58:54]
He links Snapchat to fentanyl deaths, saying it is easy to buy drugs via the platform[59:01]
He cites internal Snapchat data (via reports) indicating around 10,000 sextortion reports per month in 2022, with some victimized boys killing themselves from shame[59:28]

Discord, Roblox, and stranger contact

Haidt says his group is beginning to study Discord and Roblox and is concerned about any platform that connects children with unknown adults[1:00:12]
He warns parents not to let kids on platforms where they can talk to strangers and calls it "insane" that companies design services to connect children with unknown adults to grow their user base[1:00:07]

Ethics of teen influencers, child protection, and the drug-dealer analogy

Teen influencers vs societal protection

Neil asks how Haidt responds to a hypothetical 14-year-old influencer who earns more than a professor and rejects being told to stop[1:00:19]
Haidt compares this to a 14-year-old drug dealer making more money than a professor and asks whether that should be allowed[1:00:30]
He states that as a society, we protect children and uses that to argue for restricting harmful but lucrative activities for minors[1:00:36]

AI chatbots, loneliness, and corporate "chutzpah"

Zuckerberg's rationale for chatbots as friends

Gary asks about AI replacing human-human connections in platforms and whether this could go badly or have upside[1:01:22]
Haidt recounts Mark Zuckerberg arguing that many people are lonely and say they want more friends, and that chatbots could fill that gap[1:01:34]
Haidt calls this a striking example of "chutzpah," likening it to someone murdering his parents and then asking for mercy as an orphan[1:02:00]
He says Meta is arguably the biggest contributor to teen loneliness and then proposes tech as the remedy for the problem it helped create[1:02:25]

Ethical concerns about AI with children

Haidt cites an internal Meta document about AI ethics in which their chief ethicist allowed chatbots to have sensual conversations and talk about sex and violence with children, subject to some limits[1:02:50]
He notes that large language models are not fully understood, often showing unpredictable properties, so their behavior with children cannot be reliably controlled[1:03:09]
He references a New York Times article about a woman having a deeply erotic affair with ChatGPT, including sexual and rape fantasies, as evidence of unexpected outputs[1:03:28]
Haidt warns that toy companies like Mattel are partnering with OpenAI so that toys can have ChatGPT inside, meaning children will form deep attachments to AI characters like Barbie[1:03:33]
He says if Barbie becomes a child's literal best friend via AI, it will be extremely hard for parents to remove that influence[1:04:03]
He argues society does not have two or three years to study this; chatbot-enabled toys will be given to very young children imminently[1:03:50]
He urges a clear message: nobody should give their child a toy with AI in it, expressing skepticism that it will benefit social development given what was learned from social media[1:05:18]

Inequality, phone-free schools, and prospects for change

Uptake of Haidt's ideas among educated parents

Haidt reports that after his book came out in March 2024, college-educated mothers and professional women's book clubs rapidly adopted his recommendations[1:05:02]
These parents formed mutual pledges to delay phones, created "playberhoods" where children can roam among a group of homes, and increased offline play[1:05:21]
He says this pattern resembles junk food: it spread everywhere, but richer, more educated families learned to restrict it and thereby gained health advantages[1:05:36]
He worries that this will exacerbate inequality, with wealthier kids benefiting from restricted tech while poorer kids remain more exposed[1:05:52]

Phone-free schools as an equity measure

Haidt notes that poorer kids use phones more than rich kids, so phone-free schools offer a way to level the playing field by giving everyone 6-7 hours a day without devices[1:06:12]
He praises state governments that have moved quickly to enact phone-free school policies and raise minimum ages for certain technologies[1:06:29]
He criticizes the US federal government for passing no legislation protecting children online, despite early laws in 1998 that set the stage for current issues[1:06:34]
He asserts that Meta spends large sums influencing Congress and has successfully blocked all federal child-protection legislation in this area[1:06:38]

Reversal of the tech divide and elite schooling choices

Neil summarizes that the tech divide has flipped: once rich kids had more tech, now rich parents are restricting harmful tech and protecting their kids, while poor kids remain heavy users[1:07:23]
Haidt agrees and notes that past philanthropic efforts pushed for a computer on every desk, aiming at equity[1:07:33]
He now sees one-to-one devices as largely a disaster for attention and learning, with little evidence of educational benefit[1:07:51]
He points out that many Silicon Valley parents send their children to Waldorf schools, which intentionally have no computers in classrooms[1:08:02]
He says the richest and most powerful people protect their children from the technology they make, even requiring nannies to sign contracts banning phone use around their children[1:08:29]

Future scenarios, urgency, and closing remarks

What happens if nothing changes?

Haidt says that if trends continue, the future is an extrapolation of now: an entire generation more anxious, less risk-taking, and less entrepreneurial[1:09:30]
He predicts economic consequences, including fewer new businesses, more difficulty dating, and fewer children being born[1:09:38]
He agrees with Neil's characterization of a "sociological apocalypse" if the trajectory is not altered[1:09:47]

Signs of a global turning point

Haidt recalls a broader "techlash" in the late 2010s when people started realizing technology might be damaging society[1:10:24]
He believes we are now in a similar backlash specifically regarding children, with parents seeing harm in their own kids[1:10:11]
He mentions Brazil adopting phone-free schools nationwide, catalyzed partly by early readers of his book in English[1:10:11]
He concludes that we are at a turning point but stresses the urgent need to block AI-enabled toys for young children in the near term[1:10:50]

Zuckerberg's reaction to Haidt and possible warning labels

Chuck asks if Haidt knows how much Mark Zuckerberg hates him; Haidt says he has met Zuckerberg three times[1:11:39]
Haidt recounts that Zuckerberg was gracious at first, but recently told him at a conference that his research is not scientifically rigorous, which Haidt interprets as a new phase in their relationship[1:12:00]
Gary suggests putting health warnings on AI toys, similar to cigarette warnings, to alert parents to risks[1:12:24]
Haidt calls that a great idea but notes how long it took to get warnings on cigarettes and for people to heed them[1:13:05]

Book title, resources, and hopeful tone

Neil asks Haidt to restate the full title of his book, which Haidt does: "The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness"[1:13:19]
Neil jokingly proposes an alternative title: "Social Media is the Poison and I am its Antidote," adding "Mark Zuckerberg Hates Me" as a tongue-in-cheek subtitle[1:13:24]
Haidt thanks the hosts and directs listeners to anxiousgeneration.com for more information, noting that a children's version of the book is forthcoming[1:14:17]
Neil ends by encouraging people to keep looking up and away from their smartphones, reinforcing the episode's central message[1:15:02]

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Children are anti-fragile: they need manageable risks, conflicts, and real-world independence to develop resilience, social skills, and a well-calibrated threat system, and overprotection in the physical world undermines that growth.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where am I currently overprotecting the young people in my life in ways that might be preventing them from learning to cope and recover on their own?
  • • How could you introduce small, age-appropriate risks or responsibilities that would let a child you care about practice problem-solving and self-reliance?
  • • What is one concrete situation this month where you could step back instead of stepping in, allowing a young person to navigate a challenge themselves?
2

The harms of smartphones and social media are structural and collective, so effective solutions require coordinated norms and policies (like phone-free schools and age limits), not just individual willpower or isolated parenting decisions.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In your community, what norms or expectations around kids and phones are pressuring individual parents to go along even when they disagree?
  • • How might you work with other families, schools, or organizations to create shared agreements that make healthier tech boundaries easier for everyone to maintain?
  • • What is one specific collective action-such as supporting phone-free classrooms or a neighborhood "playberhood"-that you could help initiate or join in the next three months?
3

Not all screen time is equal; direct human connection and long-form stories can support healthy development, while rapid, algorithmic short-form feeds train shallow attention and social comparison that erode mental health.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Looking at your own and your family's habits, how much time is spent on face-to-face calls or rich stories versus scrolling short-form content?
  • • What changes to your daily routines could shift more screen time toward meaningful connection or long-form learning and away from quick, dopamine-driven feeds?
  • • This week, what is one specific app or content type you could eliminate or sharply limit, and what healthier digital or offline activity could you substitute instead?
4

Delaying smartphones and social media until after key developmental stages (like puberty), and enforcing phone-free learning environments, can protect attention, learning capacity, and social development during sensitive brain wiring periods.

Reflection Questions:

  • • If you mapped out the developmental stages of the children in your life, where might delaying a device or platform have the greatest long-term benefit?
  • • How could you communicate and enforce clear, age-based tech rules-such as "no smartphone before high school" or "no social media before 16"-in a way that feels firm but fair?
  • • What steps could you take to advocate for or support phone-free policies in a school or program you're connected to?
5

Be skeptical of technological "solutions"-including AI chatbots and toys-that claim to fix problems like loneliness which the tech ecosystem itself helped create; incentives and unintended consequences often run counter to children's long-term wellbeing.

Reflection Questions:

  • • When you encounter a new tech product marketed for kids (especially as a cure for boredom or loneliness), how do you currently evaluate its real incentives and potential downsides?
  • • How might adopting a default stance of "wait and see"-rather than early adoption-change the kinds of technologies you allow into your home or classroom?
  • • What is one upcoming purchase or tech-related decision where you could pause, gather more information, and deliberately prioritize developmental health over convenience or novelty?

Episode Summary - Notes by Sage

The Anxious Generation with Jonathan Haidt
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