Jonathan Haidt
Free speech and the harms of social media (The Anxious Generation).
Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, known for The Righteous Mind (2012), The Coddling of the American Mind (2018, with Greg Lukianoff), and the #1 bestseller The Anxious Generation (2024), which argues a phone-based childhood is driving a youth mental-health crisis. He co-founded Heterodox Academy (viewpoint diversity in higher ed) and writes the 'After Babel' Substack.
Latest posts
I used to think the main damage from social media was to youth mental health. Now I believe that the global destruction of the human ability to pay attention may be even larger. A meta-analysis shows the damage, to adults as well as teens, from TikTok+ https://t.co/YS0dkQTdj0
11mo ago · 5,478 likes
The last thing humanity needs is more deep relationships with AIs, even if the AIs are simulating people we loved before they died. This is sick, and this is our lonely future unless we start saying no to it now.
11mo ago · 2,178 likes
This is another unexpected benefit of phone-free schools: big drops in # of fights and disciplinary referrals. I'm hearing this from so many schools. The constant drama and conflict on social media often leads to real-world fights. Shut it down for 7 hours a day.
11mo ago · 2,187 likes
More evidence for the sensitive period hypothesis: Boys are especially "imprinted" by the teams that won championships when boys were 8-12. Their brains are soaking up culture and values, weighted by prestige. Don't let social media choose who imprints and guides their brain dev
11mo ago · 2,631 likes
The strongest case
Adolescent anxiety and depression have risen since the early 2010s alongside smartphones and social media, and the timing, dose-response, and international scope suggest a phone-based childhood displaces the play, sleep, and in-person connection kids need; on campus, norms that shield students from disagreement undermine both resilience and the pursuit of truth.
And against
Scholars including Candice Odgers and Amy Orben argue he mistakes correlation for causation: large studies find only small, mixed, or null associations between screen time and adolescent well-being, and there is no rigorous evidence social media is 'rewiring' children's brains, so the book overstates its causal claims.
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On the record: no documented legal record found in a primary source.