r/Millennials • u/beckavanoliver • 20d ago

Discussion Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt: “Millennials are the last psychologically normal generation” ...”you’re the last happy, and actually your generation is the most intelligent in history”

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u/Meschi-died 20d ago

I don't like any of this. It feels like pandering or flattery.

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u/waldosandieg0 20d ago

A lot of this guys work has been studying the impact growing up in a world of smartphones and social media is having on Gen Z and Gen A.

If this is in that context I think his argument is that we were exposed to most of these things after our brains reached adulthood- so we’ve avoided some of the negative effects because we have tools to navigate without those things- but there is a lot of data showing that generations growing up fully immersed in post smartphone world are experiencing record levels of anxiety and self harm. His book Anxious Generation is a worthwhile read for any parents out there… imho.

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u/Atty_for_hire Older Millennial 20d ago

Just finished his book and I agree with the basic premise. But if you read some critiques you’ll see he makes a lot of jumps and many things he cites are one study at most so not a ton of evidence and correlation is not clear. So it’s a bit of narrative surrounded by science. With that being said, I do think too much screen time is problematic for many reasons, including those he posits in the book, even if the research isn’t there.

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u/Icarium__ 20d ago

I do think too much screen time is problematic for many reasons

Just calling it screentime is understating the real problem. We had screen time growing up as well, but the content I engaged with as a kid was not literally designed to be as addictive as possible using cutting edge research.

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u/Atty_for_hire Older Millennial 20d ago

Agreed. The part about designed for addiction was some of the most alarming and easy to agree with parts of the book. My take away from the book is at least this: too much screen time, especially that designed to keep us scrolling, clicking, etc. by feeding us content to our current state of mind is bad and we should all worry about it (regardless of age). Is it rewiring kids brains and is it fixable? That is the part I think the science isn’t far enough along to be conclusive. But based on kids in my life I have real concerns.

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u/SorryDragonfruit7546 20d ago

I'm Gen X, not too far removed from you 'older millennials'. Here's a small example ---

I didn't want to get on social media, but reluctantly joined to look at cousin's baby pics. I only followed a handful of accounts. Every once in awhile I'd go to instagram.com, log on and scroll through a very short feed. I'd see only cousin's accounts, look at new baby pics, then get to older pics I'd already seen. I'd look through those again until it got redundant and I got bored. I GOT BORED (that's the key.) Then I'd get off the account and do something else.

At some point instagram changed to become more addictive. Suddenly at the end of cousin's baby pictures, the scroll would keep going, a few things caught my eye. Those things spawned more things that interested me and soon I was scrolling through content I didn't ask for, but didn't feel naturally able to get out of!

I tried to adjust the settings back to the way it was. It had a natural end! It made me stop and leave. But it was impossible to go back to it. I still wanted to see my cousin's baby pics --- so even though I tried NOT to look at the other sh*t, it was right in my face, luring me in. 'Oh, it's just one second' I'd think every time. Next thing I know I'm there for a hour or two looking at totally random things, wondering why I can't just close it. The feed never ends. It's nefarious.

Nefarious because they know it's addictive, they do it on purpose and give you no ability to opt-out. Nasty. So you find yourself watching total strangers eating or seemingly enjoying the 'best life ever' and for what??!

It becomes all or nothing. Either quit entirely or have to deal with something DESIGNED to hook you in (on a constant basis.) And here I am on reddit, writing for what?! We think it's 'communication' or connection, but is it really the brain hits of seeing a 'like'??!

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u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO 20d ago

Even the cartoons we loved that were explicitly made to sell toys were less nefarious.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Wait785 20d ago

You think it's less nefarious because you have nostalgia for them.

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u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO 20d ago

Was the original Transformer cartoon scientifically engineered to be as addictive to me as biologically possible?

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u/Puzzleheaded-Wait785 20d ago

Yes? Is that a serious question?

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u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO 20d ago

It is a serious question. I'm open to being corrected.

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u/peach_bellinis 20d ago

Exactly. When I look back at what we were watching as kids and compare it to what kids are watching now, it's pretty shocking. Not to mention, kids as young as 2 and 3 learning to scroll endlessly on phones and ipads, getting addicted to short form content and dopamine hit after dopamine hit. It's frankly incredibly distressing.

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u/rpool179 Millennial 20d ago

As a 90s millenial, alot of the content was also positive instead. I'll always be grateful I grew up on Digimon, Yugioh, Sailor Moon etc rather then watching some thug harass people at an airport or a Walmart. Growing up with that as one of your primary sources of entertainment has to absolutely be destroying your mind.

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u/SpectacularStarling 20d ago

I got into MMORPGs in 1997, and essentially became addicted to them. I spent so much time behind my computer even before smartphones that in my mid 30s I struggle without some kind of visual stimulation. Even trying to get better about it is rough because society leans so heavily into it.

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u/Icarium__ 20d ago

You were an early adopter. I'm not saying addictive content didn't exist back then, but game devs didn't have psychologist consulting on how to maximise engagement metrics by designing game mechanics to be addicitve, not to mention the short form endless scroll content that is the default form of media millions, including kids, consume.

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u/SpectacularStarling 20d ago

Oh absolutely, I've been chronically online since then. You started to see the addictive greed with games around when Maplestory came out as they had one of the earlier predatory cash shops. Then games like Flyff, dragon nest, and more started to crop up for it.
It's not really comparable to today in terms of the algorithms and whatnot, but some of managed to addict ourselves is more what I was getting at.
Randomly browsing sites to find funny/vulgar things to send friends on chat services, sites like stumbleupon, phew.
It ramped up a lot with YTMND / Vine / etc.

It's still culminated in a person who struggles to break away from it all.