Jonathan Haidt

The first truth is the foundational idea of this book: The mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict.

The second truth in this part of the story is that we are all, by nature, hypocrites, and this is why it is so hard for us to follow the Golden Rule faithfully.

central claim in this book is that these two trends—overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world—are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.

real world,” I am referring to relationships and social interactions characterized by four features that have been typical for millions of years:
They are embodied, meaning that we use our bodies to communicate, we are conscious of the bodies of others, and we respond to the bodies of others both consciously and unconsciously.
They are synchronous, which means they are happening at the same time, with subtle cues about timing and turn taking.
They involve primarily one-to-one or one-to-several communication, with only one interaction happening at a given moment.
They take place within communities that have a high bar for entry and exit, so people are strongly motivated to invest in relationships and repair rifts when they happen

They are disembodied, meaning that no body is needed, just language. Partners could be (and already are) artificial intelligences (AIs).
They are heavily asynchronous, happening via text-based posts and comments. (A video call is different; it is synchronous.)
They involve a substantial number of one-to-many communications, broadcasting to a potentially vast audience. Multiple interactions can be happening in parallel.
They take place within communities that have a low bar for entry and exit, so people can block others or just quit when they are not pleased. Communities tend to be short-lived, and relationships are often disposable.

e key factor is the commitment required to make relationships work. When people are raised in a community that they cannot easily escape, they do what our ancestors have done for millions of years: They learn how to manage relationships, and how to manage themselves and their emotions in order to keep those precious relationships going. There are certainly many online communities that have found ways to create strong interpersonal commitments and a feeling of belonging, but in general, when children are raised in multiple mutating networks where they don’t need to use their real names and they can quit with the click of a button, they are less likely to learn such skills.

how how smartphones, along with overprotection, acted like “experience blockers,” which made it difficult for children and adolescents to get the embodied social experiences they needed most, from risky play and cultural apprenticeships to rites of passage and romantic attachments.

sleep deprivation, social deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. I then zoom in on girls[*] to show that social media use does not just correlate with mental illness; it causes it, and I lay out the empirical evidence showing multiple ways that it does so. I explain how boys came to their poor mental health by a slightly different route. I show how the Great Rewiring contributed to their rising rates of “failure to launch”—that is, to make the transition from adolescence to adulthood and its associated responsibilities. I close part 3 with reflections on how a phone-based life changes us all—children, adolescents, and adults—by bringing us “down” on what I can only describe as a spiritual dimension.

No smartphones before high school. Parents should delay children’s entry into round-the-clock internet access by giving only basic phones (phones with limited apps and no internet browser) before ninth grade (roughly age 14).
No social media before 16. Let kids get through the most vulnerable period of brain development before connecting them to a firehose of social comparison and algorithmically chosen influencers.
Phone-free schools. In all schools from elementary through high school, students should store their phones, smartwatches, and any other personal devices that can send or receive texts in phone lockers or locked pouches during the school day. That is the only way to free up their attention for each other and for their teachers.
Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence. That’s the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults.