The Gray Area with Sean Illing

This is your kid on smartphones

Old people have always worried about young people. But psychologist Jonathan Haidt believes something genuinely different and troubling is happening right now. He argues that smartphones and social media have had disastrous effects on the mental health of young people, and derailed childhood from real world play to touchscreens. He joins Sean to talk about his research and some of the criticisms of it.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area
Guest: Jonathan Haidt (@jonhaidt). His book is The Anxious Generation.
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This episode was made by: 


Producer: Jon Ehrens 


Engineer: Patrick Boyd


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The Gray Area with Sean Illing takes a philosophy-minded look at culture, technology, politics, and the world of ideas. Each week, we invite a guest to explore a question or topic that matters. From the the state of democracy, to the struggle with depression and anxiety, to the nature of identity in the digital age, each episode looks for nuance and honesty in the most important conversations of our time. New episodes drop every Monday.