Finished reading: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt 📚

@marmanold review?

@marmanold Would love to hear your thoughts. I've seen some criticisms that he may be confusing correlation for causation in some cases but I'm generally intrigued.

@ChrisJWilson He’s spend some time defending himself from that accusation. Also in podcast form here, but I haven’t listened to it

@tinyroofnail Appreciate the links! I'm wary as his thesis fits my narrative so I'm trying not to swallow it uncritically.

@jonah I liked it. Naturally as a Christian I’d already come to similar conclusions through a theological lens. But, his massive research and evidence gave meat to things we can readily feel and observe.

@ChrisJWilson I’m with you. There are many, many elements contributing to the problem, most of which strongly resist the microscope, so to speak. I think there is probably something like (hearkening back to pharmacology class) a synergistic effect that, to our limited but ever-overestimated ability to “study” culture, will continue to complicate the correlation-causation debate. To my mind, we’ve known enough long before Haidt (helpfully and rightly) put his mind to the task. “Ditch that phone and got for a walk” doesn’t need a peer-reviewed study, and so on. 🙂

@tinyroofnail certainly true. I think most people have some sense of this (doom scrolling is in the common lexicon) but I wonder if some of this is catasrophising or may lead to overlooking other related issues. For example, depression could be caused by economic envy and trying to live beyond our means. Social media has no doubt increased the desire through Instagram envy but economic factors can also be reducing disposable income and increasing the price of desired goods. Then again, that can be a vicious cycle where each factor exacerbates the other. Im not anti his thesis (anything but. I’m confident he’s right) but I’m just wary that means I’m less likely to be critical or any errors and swallow other ideas that get bundled along.

@ChrisJWilson I appreciate the envy idea: people living more and more in a glamorous online world that makes them look like losers. I try to live by "simplicity=happiness" so want to think more about this

@ChrisJWilson Quite true, and completely agree. This is actually what I mean by a “synergistic effect — that other, and frankly older, problems get compounded. Nixing smart phones and social media would be a win in my book, but might also be likened to getting rid of the gasoline without actually putting out the fire. On that note, and in Haidt’s defense, he has said that the greatest problem with phones and social media is “missed opportunity.” Taking the addictive, distractive things away could mean that at some of the problems would naturally solve themselves. There might be room for a Pascal quote on distractions here but another time… 🙂

@JohnBrady John Ruskin: “Neither covetous men, nor the grave, can inherit anything; they can but consume. Only contentment can possess.”