“There is a public health disaster. There is an education disaster. It all can be traced to the same cause, which is the change technology has made in our kids’ childhood.”
Amol Rajan speaks to the American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt.
In 2024 his book The Anxious Generation sparked a fierce debate about the impact of social media and technology on young people. Haidt believes it’s behind the soaring number of mental health problems but social media companies claim this oversimplifies a deeply complex issue.
Now he says we are at a tipping point in our relationship with technology, with countries moving towards much greater regulation of social media use for children.
Thank you to the Radical team for its help in making this programme.
The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with Microsoft AI boss Mustafa Suleyman and Annika Wells, the minister in charge of Australia’s social media ban for under-16s. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.
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(Image: Jonathan Haidt Credit: Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images)
