Latest news with #Haidt
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
YouTube's cofounder said he's wary of his kids spending too much time on short videos
YouTube's cofounder and former tech chief says he doesn't want his kids to watch only short videos on platforms like TikTok, Reels, and Shorts. "I don't know if I want my kids to be watching like short-form content as their only way, and they can't be able to watch something that's more than 15 minutes in length," said Steve Chen in a talk with Stanford Business School that was published on Friday. "I think TikTok is entertainment, but it's purely entertainment," Chen, a father of two, said. "It's just for that moment. Just shorter form content equates to shorter attention spans." Chen cofounded YouTube in 2005 with colleagues he met at PayPal. He served as chief technology officer before they sold the video platform to Google in 2006. The entrepreneur has since launched several other businesses and moved to Taiwan with his family in 2019. During the talk, Chen said he knows parents who are forcing their children to watch long-form content and not showing them videos with vibrant colors and "addictive eyeballs" because these are known to get kids hooked. Chen suggested that platforms restrict the amount of time the apps can be accessed on a daily basis, based on different age groups. "There's this delicate balance between what is going to get users' eyes and what's going to monetize more versus what is actually useful," he said about short-form content platforms. Chen did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chen's worries echo recent remarks from Sam Altman about social media. On a podcast that aired last week, the OpenAI CEO — and new father — said he worries about the psychological impact social media platforms could have on children. "I do have worries about kids in technology. I think this short video feed dopamine hit, it feels like it's probably messing with kids' brain development in a super deep way," he said. Academics are warning about children and scrolling, too. Jonathan Haidt, a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business, told BI in January that social media apps were "severely damaging children in the Western world." Haidt wrote "The Anxious Generation," in which he argued that social media and smartphones shorten young people's attention spans. "The decimation of human attention around the world might even be a bigger cost to humanity than the mental health and mental illness epidemic," Haidt said.
Business Insider
6 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Sam Altman is worried about one kind of tech messing with kids' brains — and it's not AI
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, is worried the kids won't be alright. Altman was speaking to podcaster Theo Von in an interview that aired Wednesday when he was asked how parents could prepare their children for the AI age. Altman said what really worried him was the psychological impact addictive social media platforms could have on children. "I do have worries about kids in technology. I think this short video feed dopamine hit, it feels like it's probably messing with kids' brain development in a super deep way," he said. Representatives for Altman did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Altman said in his interview with Von that when it comes to AI, he was more concerned about how the older generation would adapt to it. The younger generation, meanwhile, "will be fine," Altman said. "If you look at the history of the world here, when there's new technology, people that grow up with it, they're always fluent. They always figure out what to do. They always learn the new kind of jobs," Altman said. "But if you're a 50-year-old and you have to learn to do things in a very different way, that doesn't always work," he added. But that's not to say that AI won't have an impact on youths. On Tuesday, Altman said at a Federal Reserve banking event that young people were over-relying on ChatGPT for decision-making. "Even if ChatGPT gives way better advice than any human therapist, something about collectively deciding we're going to live our lives the way AI tells us feels bad and dangerous," Altman said. Altman isn't the only one who has talked about the dangers posed by social media platforms to children. Jonathan Haidt, a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business, told BI in January that social media apps were "severely damaging children in the Western world." Haidt is best known for his book "The Anxious Generation" where he argued that social media and smartphones were affecting the attention spans of young people. "The decimation of human attention around the world might even be a bigger cost to humanity than the mental health and mental illness epidemic," Haidt said.
Pink Villa
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
How Gen Z's made Saiyaara a Phenomenon: An emotional uprising of digital natives
In an era where content scrolls faster than emotions can register, the runaway success of Saiyaara stands as a cultural revelation. With no marquee stars or franchise clout, the film still broke through and became a generational anthem—driven entirely by Gen Z. But to understand this phenomenon, we must look not just at the film but at the psychology of its audience. Saiyaara didn't just entertain—it healed, echoed, and reflected the lived emotional landscape of a digitally native generation raised in what psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls a "phone-based childhood.' Unlike millennials who transitioned into the internet age, Gen Z was born inside it. They are digital natives, fluent in memes, editing tools, and algorithmic cues—but emotionally stunted in the real world. As Haidt notes in The Anxious Generation, this is the first generation to be raised more by screens than by play. Their childhoods have shifted from being 'play-based' to 'phone-based,' a subtle change with profound implications. These young people have access to a wealth of information but a poverty of experience. Hovered over by overprotective parents in the real world, their risk-taking, real-life socializing, and emotional resilience have all been underdeveloped. The result is a generation paradoxically more connected and more isolated than any before it. Saiyaara lands squarely in this gap. At its core, the film is about raw, unfiltered emotion—heartbreak, vulnerability, yearning. It doesn't wink at the audience or wrap its pain in cool irony. It leans into the ache. And for a generation that has grown up emotionally distant—liking stories rather than living them—this sincere storytelling feels like oxygen. Haidt writes that kids today are "desperate for meaning, connection, and safe spaces to feel." Saiyaara offered that. It wasn't just a film; it was an emotional sanctuary. From a behavioural economics perspective, Saiyaara starring Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, activated several key cognitive and emotional triggers. One is contrast bias: in a media landscape cluttered with ironic, hyper-fast, or emotionally shallow content, Saiyaara stood out like a quiet cry in a crowded room. Its sincerity, its stillness, and its melancholic honesty were a jarring contrast to the dopamine-chasing Instagram scroll or the predictable arcs of algorithm-friendly content. Viewers remembered it not because it was loud, but because it hurt—and the brain remembers pain more vividly than pleasure. This emotional stickiness translated seamlessly to virality. Gen Z didn't merely consume the film—they deconstructed it, personalized it, and gave it second life on digital platforms. Here, the IKEA effect comes into play: behavioural economists have found that people value what they help build. Every reel edited, every emotional montage created with Saiyaara's soundtrack, every reaction video posted—these weren't just tributes; they were acts of emotional authorship. Gen Z made the film theirs, and in doing so, gave it cultural immortality. Equally important was identity signalling. In today's social internet, content is a proxy for personality. Sharing a tearjerker moment from Saiyaara, posting a romantic dialogue, or setting its score as a story background was a subtle way of saying, 'I feel deeply. I crave meaning. I believe in love.' These expressions help Gen Z craft online identities that feel more intimate than their guarded offline ones. In a world where performative detachment is the norm, embracing a film like Saiyaara became an act of emotional rebellion. What started as cinema became a mood, a language, and a shared emotional ritual. The music too deserves its due. A deeply melodic and emotionally stirring soundtrack created what can be described as a sensory echo chamber. The score was not just accompaniment—it became a looping emotional trigger. Gen Z stitched these sounds into their digital lives, creating short-form content that repeated and reactivated the film's emotion day after day, week after week. What started as cinema became a mood, a language, and a shared emotional ritual. Crucially, Saiyaara also emerged at a time when Bollywood had abandoned the genre of intense, old-school romance. The industry pivoted to slick thrillers, sanitized rom-coms, or multiverse spectacles—leaving a vacuum of raw love stories. Behavioural economics teaches us that scarcity increases perceived value, and Saiyaara entered this emotional void with full force. It became the only film speaking directly to a silent yearning that other content had ignored. In the end, the success of Saiyaara is not just about box office numbers. It is about resonance. It is about how a film, by daring to be emotionally naked, gave a screen-bound generation permission to feel again. For young people raised to be emotionally cautious, socially anxious, and forever online, Saiyaara was a window into a world of messy, irrational, aching love. A world they had only seen in reels but never lived in real life. And in that window, they saw themselves—not as they are, but as they long to be. In an industry obsessed with IP and scale, Saiyaara is a reminder that emotional truth, when paired with digital fluidity, is the most powerful engine of modern virality.
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dr. Jonathan Haidt Is Leading a Parenting Movement—Here's What He Wants You to Know About Technology and Kids' Mental Health
Parents Next Gen winner and author of 'The Anxious Generation,' Dr. Jonathan Haidt, says he's helping parents create stability for their children by reclaiming childhood. In an age dominated by screens, social media, and shrinking childhood freedoms, renowned psychologist and one of Parents' Next Gen winners, Jonathan Haidt, is leading a growing global movement to help parents reclaim their kids' mental health, independence, and joy. With the release of his bestselling 2024 book The Anxious Generation and his activism throughout 2025, Dr. Haidt has emerged as one of the most influential voices in parenting today. Dr. Haidt, a professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, has spent years researching the mental health crisis among young people. His conclusion? The dramatic rise in anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal is closely tied to the early and excessive use of smartphones and social media. Dr. Haidt is on a mission to help kids "break up" with their phones and reclaim mental health, which is why he's a Parents Next Gen winner. Not content with just influencing parents, Dr. Haidt turned to children themselves. He co-authored an interactive graphic novel called The Amazing Generation—a playful guide to help 5th to 8th graders 'break up with their phones' and rediscover the joys of real life, out in December 2025. Parents across the country have embraced it as a tool for opening conversations and creating family screen-time rules collaboratively. Dr. Haidt's influence reached even wider after recently appearing with Michelle Obama on her podcast. Together, they tackled one of today's thorniest parenting issues: how to set boundaries in a tech-driven world. 'Understand that your children are not your friends,' Obama emphasized, echoing Dr. Haidt's call for strong, deliberate parenting. The episode prompted an explosion of online dialogue and further fueled the movement of parents supporting each other in creating healthier home environments. Dr. Haidt spoke exclusively to Parents. What motivates you to do the work that you do? What motivates me? Gosh, so many different motivations. It started as just scientific curiosity about why the mental health stats suddenly got so horrible in 2012. What happened? Then it moved on to be, 'This is the biggest problem I have ever seen. This is actually changing an entire generation of human beings.' So now it's become really more of a Anxious Generation we are helping families and organizations around the world to make change. It's become so many different motivations, but it's been really thrilling because almost everyone wants to change this. How are you raising your children to be changemakers? I'm raising my kids, first, to be independent. I haven't really thought about making them changemakers per se. My daughter's 15, my son is 18, and we focused on just giving them more independence than we were ready for, like pushing ourselves to listen to Lenore Skenazy, who advocates for free-range we focused on just letting them out more in New York City, letting them navigate, letting them do errands. Now my kids, they go all over the city on city bikes. They're confident. So I've just been focusing on getting them to fly and then they'll find their way in the world. It seems like devices can be particularly threatening to boys' outlook and sense of self. How can we raise young boys to thrive and not just survive? Well, the most important thing for raising boys is that they have to have thousands or millions of real-world experiences, some of which involve risk and our kids, our boys, are having thousands or millions of video games. And it's not just the video games. It's the porn. It's the vaping. It's so many online activities. So, we've got to delay boys descending into video games and got to send them out into the world to play and have adventures, even though that's kind of scary for us. We have to overcome our own fears and give our boys the kind of childhoods that their fathers or grandfathers had, at least to the extent that we can. What would you say to parents who have an issue with delaying—they have a teen who is feeling excluded and wants social media? Let's say we're first on the smartphone. You can give your kid a non-smartphone. It's fine to have your kid be in contact with their friends. But just try to hold out on a smartphone because that's a gambling casino and pornography, and everything else in their pocket. On social media, it can be harder. If your kid has one other friend who isn't on social media, it's a lot easier than if every single friend is on social media. And finally, just educate yourself about social media. On my Substack we have posts giving quotations from employees at Snapchat and TikTok. And if you know what they know, you wouldn't let your kids on TikTok and Snapchat. So it's hard. My daughter is 15. I've not let her have any social media and I am imposing a cost on her in the short run. But in the long run, I think I have a happier daughter who is going to flourish and fly the nest. What would be your word of advice for parents? We all feel anxious about letting our kids out, letting them out of our control, letting them out of our view. But we have to do what's best for the kids, not what's best for our own feelings. And we have to overcome our anxiety if we want to give our kids a chance of overcoming their anxiety. We have to let them grow up, take small risks by themselves without us there, to discover that they can do it. It can be as simple as sending your kid into a grocery store. If you have a seven-year-old child who's been shopping with you 50 or 100 times, knows how to do it, you say, 'Here's some money, go get a quart of milk. I'll wait here in the parking lot,' or 'I'll wait at the front of the store.' Just start small, and you will be anxious that first time, but your kid is going to be jumping up and down with excitement that you gave them this chance to do something. We all need to feel useful, and our kids have to feel useful, so let them do useful things. That's how they'll grow up. One last question, because you gave so many hopeful ideas there. Do you have any specific advice for dads? So my advice to dads is that while moms have been sort of leading the movement to push back on smartphones, the other half of this is you have to give your kids an exciting, real-world childhood, which includes thrills and risk-taking and running around and wrestling. And this is where dads excel. Dad is the one who's going to pretend to be a predator stalking the child and pretending to be a big, scary monster. That sort of stuff is incredibly healthy for kids. Dad's the one who's going to be throwing them up in the air. That mix of fear and excitement with safety is the most powerful thing you can give your kids to overcome their own anxieties and become a force in the world. Dads are uniquely qualified, or I should just say on average, they enjoy it more, and they tend to gravitate to that role. So this is where I think dads are really really crucial. Read the original article on Parents Solve the daily Crossword
The Hill
18-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Art or algorithms? A choice for America's children
While America fixates on wars in Israel and Ukraine, protests over deportations and fights over tariffs, a quieter crisis is destroying our children from within. Nearly one-third of U.S. children show signs of addictive behavior tied to mobile phones and social media by age 11. Those with the highest levels of compulsive use are more than twice as likely to report suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety or aggression. This isn't speculation — it's the stark finding from a new study that should terrify every parent in America. Children who feel they can't put the phone down are literally losing hope. And while our attention stays locked on external battles and street demonstrations, we are about to defund the one proven antidote to digital despair: arts education. The research, as reported by the Financial Times, amplifies the work of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whose book ' The Anxious Generation ' exposed how smartphones are damaging developing minds. The rise in teen anxiety, depression and self-harm isn't a coincidence — it tracks directly with the spread of smartphones and social media. Haidt's call to action is clear: Give kids their childhoods back by changing our digital norms. But here's what the policy debate is missing: When I was chairman of the New York State Council on the Arts, we commissioned a study from McKinsey in 1997 titled, 'You Gotta Have Art!' It found that for every dollar received in public grants, arts organizations raise $9 from other sources. In other words, taxpayers get tremendous bang for their buck spent on arts education. And art isn't a luxury. It's a lifeline. In low-income and underserved communities — where kids face the highest risk of social media addiction and have the least access to mental health support — arts programs provide what algorithms cannot: structure, purpose and human connection. They teach discipline and self-expression. They offer sanctuary from the scroll. They give children the chance to discover who they are beyond the screen. I've witnessed this transformation firsthand for decades. In my role as chairman, I've visited VFW halls turned into rehearsal spaces, summer camps that became studios, shuttered churches reopened as community theaters. These places don't need TikTok — they need teachers, canvases, clarinets and courage. Without National Endowment for the Arts support, they vanish. Not hypothetically — now. In Iowa, the beloved nonprofit cinema FilmScene just lost its entire National Endowment for the Arts grant overnight. There was no warning — just a cold, bureaucratic phrase: 'no longer prioritized by the president.' That funding supported programming for people with disabilities, local festivals and community outreach. Without it, a cultural pillar could collapse. FilmScene isn't alone. Today, students in high-poverty schools are twice as likely to have no arts education at all. This isn't just unfair — it's strategically stupid. Data show low-income students engaged in arts are twice as likely to graduate college. Arts education creates a pipeline to success and a buffer against isolation and algorithmic manipulation. So why cut it? Because critics call it elitist? Here's the truth: Cutting arts funding doesn't hurt elites. It devastates kids who have nothing else. Lincoln Center will survive. The after-school jazz program in East St. Louis will not. The community mural project in West Texas will not. In 1997, conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) tried to kill the National Endowment for the Arts — until fellow Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.) stood up and said no. D'Amato cited hard data and made the case that arts funding wasn't liberal indulgence but conservative common sense. President Trump should follow that model. He should not only preserve the National Endowment for the Arts, but he should reform it to serve communities most in need. As he did at the Kennedy Center, he can appoint leadership reflecting traditional values — faith, discipline, patriotism, family — and repurpose the NEA to rescue children from digital despair. This transcends politics. It is about right and wrong. Arts aren't the enemy of conservative values — they are the antidote to a society forgetting how to raise whole human beings. They teach perseverance, honor tradition and create bonds no app can replicate. We face a simple choice: algorithm or art. One isolates. The other inspires. One extracts attention. The other expands minds. One sells. The other saves. For our children, our communities and our country, let's choose art.
