Today we’re diving deep into one of the most urgent questions of our time.
Jonathan Haidt, the renowned social psychologist and NYU Stern professor, has become one of the clearest voices diagnosing what’s gone wrong with our digital age.
Author of The Anxious Generation and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, Haidt argues that the rapid shift from social networking to addictive, engagement-maximizing social media platforms after 2009 fundamentally rewired childhood, shattered shared reality, and accelerated mental health crises, polarization, and societal fragmentation.
His Substack, After Babel, takes its name from the biblical story of the Tower of Babel — that moment when humanity’s grand project collapsed into mutual incomprehension. Haidt and his team use it as the perfect metaphor for the chaos of the 2010s: the loss of common stories, the rise of performative outrage, the epidemic of anxiety and depression among Gen Z, and the erosion of liberal democracy under algorithms designed to keep us scrolling, shouting, and divided.
Is technology delivering the utopia Silicon Valley promised… or locking us into a technofascist living hell of surveillance, addiction, and atomization?
Today we unpack Haidt’s research, the evidence, and what parents, schools, and free people can still do about it.
WATCH LIVE HERE:
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SJ Show Notes:
After Babel: The Jonathan Haidt Substack: https://www.afterbabel.com/about
Why You Should Be A Techno Sceptic: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/ted-haidt-you-should-be-a-techno-skeptic
From 'digital detoxes' to flip phones, why Gen Z is turning anti-tech: https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/technology/2026/06/25/young-adults-turning-anti-tech-flip-phones/89107381007/
Digital Detox for The Modern Family: https://www.afterbabel.com/cp/165000280
Duluth becomes Minnesota’s largest community to pull plug on Flock cameras: https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-sheriff-taking-down-flock-cameras-despite-defending-the-technology/601877050
The Great American AI Rebellion: https://open.substack.com/pub/derekthompson/p/why-americans-really-hate-data-centers?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Open Letter to Secretary Kennedy demanding his resignation: https://x.com/EmbracingTara/status/2086906059667419536?s=20
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