Just to levy a single criticism among several: I find Haidt’s rebuttal of the climate change hypothesis unconvincing: fears around climate change are not “energizing” in the way that prior crises are, in a significant part because public sentiment around climate change is that we’re already doomed in a way that isn’t really possible with social crises. Similarly: I don’t think most teenage girls were voraciously reading Al Gore in the 1990s; extensive public awareness of climate change doesn’t imply a disproportionate impact on youth, especially when we consider that more extreme weather events (and their reporting) began in the mid-late 2000s.
I think Haidt could probably make his argument stronger if he discussed social media as an accelerant, rather than a cause in and of itself. I can’t think of any real reason why he doesn’t (it makes his argument strictly stronger, and results in the same conclusions) other than ideological ones: he’s too baked into his incestuous “heterodox” world to weaken his claims.
I think Haidt could probably make his argument stronger if he discussed social media as an accelerant, rather than a cause in and of itself. I can’t think of any real reason why he doesn’t (it makes his argument strictly stronger, and results in the same conclusions) other than ideological ones: he’s too baked into his incestuous “heterodox” world to weaken his claims.