Johnathan Haidt

We reason to find the best possible reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment

-Johnathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt is a Professor of Social Psychology who has done some interesting work, books, and speeches about things I am really interested in. Perhaps what really got me interested is his examination of how liberals and conservatives can be so different but both so well intended. He used to be a Democrat, but according to him his work has made him more independent. My conservative friend and I both read his book and emailed each other our thoughts on each section. He said he thought it was the best book he read all year, and he reads a lot: I agree.

One's of Haidt's areas of study is the effect of social media on young people. He and his collogues have theorized that the rise of smart phones and social media hitting the H.S. and middle school ages correlated to a rise in anxiety, depression and corresponding issues, especially in girls. The reason given is that girls' bullying is more relational (who got "likes" who didn't get invited to chat, etc...) while guys' bullying is more physical and doesn't translate to phone use. More than that, guys mostly use phones for video games.

Here's the rise of social media. Notice the dates.

This is an article supporting the ideas that girls' use a lot of relational bullying: selective attention, invites, "likes," and follows, etc...

This is a basic chart very much showing a positive correlation between anxiety, depression and hours of screen time.

As social media takes off so do with see a corresponding rise in depression (and anxiety) in girls. Guys mostly just play games, and don't socialize the same way.

As you can see guys' numbers for non-fatal self harm are just not going up.

Girls, on the other hand have numbers going up much more than guys, again correlating with growing social media use

Here you can compare both guys and girls with depression nd see the beginnings of the rise with girls.

Johnathan Haidt also thinks our society is over coddling our children such that they are too thin-skinned when it comes to challenging ideas, too easily have their feelings hurt, and not as capable as they should be in conflict resolution.

One of the most interesting things to me Haidt studies is the differences in liberals vs. conservatives.

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