News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Is Economic Deprivation the Real Cause of the Adolescent ... by itishappy on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @04:19PM (#39922549)
The Hidden Brain podcast came to the same conclusion in the Escaping the Matrix episode featuring Jonathan Haidt.

https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/escaping-the-matrix/

TL;DR: It's phones and social media. We're social creatures who rely on dynamic networks of diverse opinions, but social media perverts this. We build static networks affirming our own opinions and that leaves us afraid of the unknown.

My favorite point Jonathan made is that if you look at the world as a whole, the spectrum of morality is actually incredibly diverse! Nobody sets out to build an evil ideology. Empires, caste systems, and communism were all built from moral foundations, even if their values are alien to us. In light of this, instead of asking why so much of the world looks backwards from an American liberal perspective (full disclosure: my perspective), a more interesting question is why American liberals adopt such a narrow view.

Re:Is Economic Deprivation the Real Cause of the Adolescent ... by redthrow on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @05:25PM (#39923377)
Tyler Cowen also did a podcast with Jonathan Haidt where he questioned Haidt's conclusion that the smartphone/social media are the cause of (some) younger people's poor mental health.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQoNd9oEeoI

(The discussion on Haidt's book "The Anxious Generation" starts at 13:08)

Cowen also questioned Haidt's prescription about how social media companies and the government should regulate social media through (stricter) age verification etc.