Haidt is not the world's most careful data analyst [0], so a determined skeptic would probably not find this persuasive. But I think he's been directionally correct about all his major points in the past decade:
* Cancel culture is not compatible with democratic norms [1]
* Social media is making many people a little worse off and it makes some people a lot worse off
* having our phones on us all the time is bad for just about everything that requires sustained attention [2], including flirting and dating [3]
* Technology won't solve this problem. AI will make things worse [4]. If TikTok gets banned and some slightly more benevolent version takes it place, we're still headed in the wrong direction. What we need is culture change, which Haidt is trying his darndest at. Hats off to him.
* Cancel culture is not compatible with democratic norms [1]
* Social media is making many people a little worse off and it makes some people a lot worse off
* having our phones on us all the time is bad for just about everything that requires sustained attention [2], including flirting and dating [3]
* Technology won't solve this problem. AI will make things worse [4]. If TikTok gets banned and some slightly more benevolent version takes it place, we're still headed in the wrong direction. What we need is culture change, which Haidt is trying his darndest at. Hats off to him.
[0] https://matthewbjane.github.io/blog-posts/blog-post-7.html
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/23/business/jonathan-haidt-s...
[2] https://thecritic.co.uk/its-the-phones-stupid/
[3] https://www.sexual-culture.com/p/its-obviously-the-phones
[4] https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/726709657/sometimes-fascinati...