Up Next
Taylor Alesia Reveals Why Top OnlyFans Creators Are Abandoning the Industry for Jesus Christ
12:11
Ana Kasparian Exposes the Pro-Israel Media Blackout on Epstein Files and America's Weakened Military
23:48
Candace Owens Reveals Emmanuel Macron Called Trump to Silence Her Over Brigitte Investigation
2:08:26
Related Books
Browse Conservative Books
Jonathan Haidt on Why Ultra-Social Humans Must Fight Back Against Technology Invading Childhood
Jonathan Haidt argues that humans are ultra-social creatures like bees and ants, with deep needs for community that technology is systematically undermining. Drawing on research from his work on digital technology's effects on young people, Haidt presents three principles of techno-skepticism: protect brain development through puberty, prioritize people and books in education over screens, and beware of artificial relationships for minors. He examines how social media, educational technology, and AI are damaging children's attention spans, mental health, and social development. Yet Haidt remains hopeful, pointing to a growing movement of parents, educators, and legislators who are reclaiming childhood by getting phones out of schools, raising social media age limits to 16, and letting children experience real-world independence again.
The Ultra-Social Nature of Humanity
Jonathan Haidt opens by asking the audience to remember a time when they felt fully integrated into a group—whether a sports team, band, friend circle, or work team tackling something big and difficult under pressure. He poses a question: does that memory glow? Do you look back on it as something special and magical?
The great biologist E.O. Wilson observed that humans aren't just social like dogs and chimpanzees—we are ultra-social, like bees and ants. We have a massive division of labor and love to do things that put us in a mindset of one for all, all for one. Yet our hives aren't made out of wax; they're made out of shared culture and shared experiences.
While Haidt's talk isn't about bees and ants, it is about technology and childhood. He explores what we can learn about technology and childhood when we start with the premise that human beings are ultra-social creatures with deep needs for community and communion.
The Phone-Based Childhood and Social Media's Damage
As a social psychologist who studies the effects of digital technology on young people, Haidt finds what he sees from this perspective very concerning. He believes it justifies a general sense of wariness or skepticism about the technologies pushing their way into childhood today.
In the early 2010s, teens traded in their flip phones for smartphones, and the phone-based childhood began. Their social lives moved onto social media. At first, people thought this would be fine, maybe even better. But quantity pushed out quality, and teens started spending far less time with each other in person.
This presents a problem for our ultra-social species because many of our evolved bonding mechanisms involve our bodies. We connect and bond with people when we eat with them, when we share food, when we share laughter, when we move together in synchrony—even if it's just walking next to each other. We bond together when we touch.
When everything moved online, teens across the developed world lost most of those bonding experiences. Levels of loneliness and anxiety began to rise almost immediately in many countries simultaneously. This wasn't just a historical correlation—there are now multiple lines of evidence showing that social media is causing harm at an industrial scale.
One line of evidence comes from dozens of experiments showing that when you randomly assign people (usually adults or young adults) to greatly reduce their social media use for at least a week, their levels of anxiety and depression go down. One of those studies was conducted by Meta itself.
Brain Rot: The Attention Crisis
Haidt reveals that what he's learned in the last two years is that he grossly understated the damage in his book The Anxious Generation, because he focused on mental health outcomes—that's where the data is, where researchers are doing the most work. But he now believes an even larger damage is the diminishment of the human capacity to pay sustained attention.
One-third of all American teens say they're on a social media platform almost constantly throughout the day. The main thing they're doing on those platforms is watching very short videos. Young people call it brain rot, which is a funny term, but it might really be true.
The adolescent brain is always a brain being remodeled. The neural network of a child has to convert itself, has to rewire itself to become the neural network of an adult. That rewiring process—the neurons finding each other—is shaped by whatever you're doing every day and by whatever everyone else says is prestigious.
This means that puberty is the worst possible time for a human being to be on social media. For our ultra-social species, that rewiring should be guided by huge amounts of social interaction in the real world, not by TikTok's algorithm.
First Principle: Protect Brain Development Through Puberty
Haidt presents the first principle of what might be called techno-skepticism: protect brain development through puberty. That's why it's so important for countries to follow Australia's example and raise the age for opening social media accounts to 16, as Australia did.
The EdTech Problem: Screens on Every Desk
While there are good uses of technology in education—Haidt notes his kids have learned a lot from Khan Academy—he's very concerned about what happened when we started putting computers and tablets on kids' desks through so-called one-to-one device policies.
Computers and tablets are multi-function entertainment systems. If kids can get to the internet, they will play video games and watch short videos, watch YouTube shorts, and even pornography. As soon as one-to-one devices arrived in the 2010s, national test scores began dropping in the USA and in many other countries, especially in countries that most firmly embraced educational technology.
While Haidt can't prove these declines were caused by the screens and apps placed on kids' desks, he points to compelling evidence. Sweden led the world in digitizing education in the 2010s. They got rid of textbooks, put a device on every desk, and even mandated that nursery schools had to use tablets.
After years of experience and years of declining test scores, Sweden reversed course. In 2023, they announced they're going back to textbooks, pulling out many devices, and returning to books and handwriting, especially in earlier grades. Their top research institute, the Karolinska Institute, issued a report backing the government's position, stating there is clear scientific evidence that digital tools impair, rather than enhance, student learning.
Haidt notes that many professors are banishing computers and laptops from their classrooms. His students at NYU say they learn much better when people aren't on devices, when they don't have a computer and the multitasking staring them in the face. If college students can't learn well when there's a computer in front of them, how can we expect eight-year-olds to do it?
School is an intrinsically social experience. Students are not learning machines—they're ultra-social human beings who need to connect with their teachers and fellow students. They don't need to connect with more screens.
Second Principle: Prioritize People and Books in Education
The second principle of techno-skepticism: prioritize people and books in education, not screens. We should never have let laptops and tablets spread through K-12 education without extensive testing and evidence of safety and efficacy.
AI: The Next Frontier of Concern
Haidt warns we're about to make the exact same mistake with AI. He asks: do you see the pattern here? We let social media companies take over our kids' social lives, and they've harmed our kids' social lives and their mental health. We let EdTech companies take over our kids' schools, and they appear to be doing more harm than good. Now AI companies are coming for their relationships to be their friends, their therapists, and even their sexual partners. What could go wrong?
We're already seeing massive cognitive offloading and learning loss. When students have access to AI, they pass the critical thinking over to the AI. We're already seeing young people becoming dependent on ChatGPT to make their personal decisions and to draft their texts and emails.
There's also a booming AI toy market. Chatbots are being put into dolls and teddy bears, and these chatbots are super responsive to the child. They're always there to offer comfort, to be there for the child. Of course, parents are often busy. But if the chatbot is super responsive while the parents aren't as responsive, the child's attachment system—which is looking for who in my environment is the person who responds to me—may well imprint or focus on the chatbot, which is going to compromise their relationship with their own parents.
Third Principle: Beware of Artificial Relationships
The third principle of techno-skepticism: just be wary of artificial relationships for minors. Give them nothing that conveys that it understands the child or that it cares, because it doesn't. There could be a role for AI therapists someday, but we should require years of testing before we let anyone push it out into childhood.
The Digital Native Myth
Haidt addresses the concern some parents may have: "I want my child to be successful in the digital future and the digital workplace. Why not give them a head start?" He offers two reasons why this thinking is flawed.
First, these technologies are extremely easy to use. Your kid doesn't need a 10-year head start to master social media and AI. Second, we now know that being a digital native does not confer an advantage. For many kids, it's a curse because it messes with a kid's attention systems and their motivational systems. It teaches them that there's always a little bit of reward, always a little bit of dopamine available just one swipe away, and that undermines the ability to do difficult or sustained cognitive work like reading a book.
Haidt shares an example from his course at NYU called Flourishing. Two years ago, while discussing attention fragmentation, one of his students who's a very heavy TikTok user said, "Yeah, I take out a book, I read a sentence, I get bored, I go to TikTok."
If we want our children to be successful in the digital future, we need to protect them from the damage being done in the digital present.
Liberation or Isolation?
Returning to the hive metaphor, Haidt asks what we see when we look at technology and childhood through this lens. When we start from the premise that humans are ultra-social, we see that these technologies are being built by people who don't understand that premise. They think of people as consumers with social needs that can be satisfied by machines. They think it's good to free people from dependence on other people.
Haidt poses a hypothetical: let's suppose they really can give us excellent friends and excellent romantic partners. In fact, he shares that Esther Perel told him at lunch that she recently did her first couples therapy with a mixed couple—a human male and an AI female.
So is this liberation? Do we no longer have to depend on other people to meet our social needs? Would that make us happy if we don't have to depend on others? Absolutely not, because that would mean nobody depends on us. Nobody is relying on us. We are not important to anyone.
Fighting Back: Putting the Genie Back in the Bottle
Haidt asks: is this our fate? Is there any way to stop this lonely digital future? His answer is yes. When The Anxious Generation came out two years ago, one of the main objections he received was that he was too late. The technology's here to stay, people said. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.
But in the last few years, humanity has mobilized, and we are putting the genie back in the bottle. Mothers were the first to organize and take action, but they were quickly joined by fathers and by many Gen Z activist organizations, and also by many governors and many heads of state.
Together, we're getting phones out of schools around the world. Teachers are thrilled to get their students back. One of the most common things they report: we hear laughter in the hallways again. We're getting the age raised for social media to 16—more than a dozen countries have already committed to following Australia's bold example.
Parents are also letting go and trusting their children to ride bicycles with their friends and to do errands so they can feel useful. Haidt gives an example of a mom in Utah who gave her seven-year-old son the Let Grow challenge—where you ask a kid what's something they think they can do on their own. Her son said he thought he could go into a Chick-fil-A restaurant and get lunch.
In the video, you see the mother sitting in the car and the kid coming out of the store with the bags and a huge smile. He gets in the car and says, "That was so fun." The mom asks, "Were you nervous?" He replies, "Yeah, my legs are still shivering, but I want to do it again."
These stories move and thrill Haidt the most because this movement is not primarily about technology—it's about reclaiming childhood in the real world with real people.
Three Principles of Techno-Skepticism
Facing the question of what to do about robot teachers and all the other future waves of technology that will push their way into childhood without adequate safety testing, Haidt acknowledges it can seem overwhelming. He repeats the three principles of techno-skepticism:
- Protect brain development through puberty
- Prioritize people and books in education, not screens
- Beware of artificial relationships for minors
Haidt believes techno-skepticism is the right attitude for people today, especially for parents and legislators, because when it comes to children, these companies have earned our distrust. Techno-skepticism means that from now on, we put the burden of proof on them. Let them prove that their products are safe. We treat them like any other maker of potentially dangerous consumer products. We make them prove their products are safe before they push them out into the world, and we hold them responsible for their safety lapses.
Conclusion: Fighting for Human Connection
Human beings are ultra-social creatures who need to matter to one another in order to flourish. We are so brilliant that we've invented technologies that can replace us, that can take us out of each other's lives. But human connection is not optional—it's who we are. So we're going to have to fight for a future in which our children can grow into flourishing, connected adults.
Q&A with Sal Khan
Following the talk, Sal Khan engages Haidt in conversation. Khan asks about finding middle ground—whether there might be acceptable uses when students are writing papers, editing video, or doing something creative while building skills in the process.
Haidt responds that it depends on the age. For elementary school, his answer is no. It's clear kids need to learn basic skills and develop the habit of books. There's extensive research showing print is better. For elementary school, he advocates getting rid of all one-to-one devices and going back to books and paper.
Haidt notes that the people who made this technology often choose to send their kids to schools that don't have it. For young kids, he says just no—until it's proven safe, no.
He references something he told Khan years ago: if someone would make a device that just had Khan Academy and couldn't access YouTube or anything else, that would be amazing. Khan confirms he's raising money for exactly that project, seeking support for creating such a device.
Video Transcript
[00:04] So, to begin,
[00:06] I invite you all to remember a time in
[00:07] your life, a period in your life when
[00:09] you felt fully integrated into a group.
[00:12] Maybe you're on a sports team,
[00:14] maybe you played in a band, or maybe
[00:16] just had a great group of friends that
[00:17] loved to hang out together.
[00:19] Or maybe it was at work. Maybe you were
[00:20] part of a team trying to do something
[00:22] big and difficult under time pressure,
[00:24] but you all pulled together.
[00:26] Whatever it was, my question to you is
[00:29] does that memory glow?
[00:32] Do you look back on that as something
[00:34] special and magical, that time in your
[00:36] life?
[00:37] The great biologist E.O. Wilson says
[00:40] that humans aren't just social,
[00:42] like like dogs and chimpanzees, we are
[00:45] ultra-social, like bees and ants.
[00:48] We have a massive division of labor,
[00:50] and we love to do things that put us in
[00:52] a mindset of one for all, all for one.
[00:57] Yet our hives aren't made out of wax.
[00:59] They're made out of shared culture and
[01:01] shared experiences.
[01:03] My talk today isn't really about bees
[01:05] and ants. It's actually about technology
[01:07] and childhood.
[01:09] But let's see what we can see about
[01:10] technology and childhood if we start
[01:13] with this premise
[01:14] that human beings are ultra-social
[01:17] creatures with deep needs for community
[01:20] and communion.
[01:22] As a social psychologist who studies the
[01:23] effects of of digital tech on young
[01:26] people, what I see from this perspective
[01:28] is very concerning.
[01:30] I think it justifies a general sense of
[01:33] wariness or skepticism about the
[01:36] technologies that are pushing their way
[01:38] into childhood today.
[01:40] So, let's start with social media.
[01:43] In the early 2010s, teens traded in
[01:45] their flip phones for smartphones, and
[01:47] the phone-based childhood began. Their
[01:50] social lives moved on to social media.
[01:52] At first we thought this would be fine,
[01:54] maybe even better.
[01:56] But quantity pushes out quality, and
[01:59] they started spending a lot less time
[02:00] with each other in person. And that's a
[02:02] problem for our ultra-social species,
[02:04] because a lot of our evolved bonding
[02:07] mechanisms involve our bodies.
[02:09] So, we connect with people, we bond with
[02:11] people when we eat with them, when we
[02:13] share food with them,
[02:15] when we share laughter,
[02:17] when we move together in synchrony, even
[02:19] if it's just walking next to each other.
[02:22] And we bond together when we touch.
[02:25] But when everything moved online,
[02:28] teens across the developed world lost
[02:31] most of those bonding experiences.
[02:34] Levels of loneliness and anxiety began
[02:36] to rise almost immediately
[02:38] in many countries simultaneously.
[02:41] And this wasn't just a historical
[02:43] correlation.
[02:44] There are now multiple lines of evidence
[02:47] showing that social media is causing
[02:50] harm at an industrial scale.
[02:53] One line is the dozens of experiments
[02:56] showing that when you randomly assign
[02:57] people, these are usually with adults,
[02:59] young adults, when you randomly assign
[03:00] people to greatly reduce their social
[03:03] media use for at least a week,
[03:05] their levels of anxiety and depression
[03:07] go down. And one of those studies
[03:10] was done by Meta.
[03:13] But what I've learned in the last 2
[03:14] years is that I grossly understated the
[03:17] damage in the anxious generation,
[03:20] because I focused on the mental health
[03:22] outcomes.
[03:24] That's where we have to That's data,
[03:25] that's where we're doing the most work.
[03:27] But I now believe that an even larger
[03:29] damage is the diminishment of the human
[03:32] capacity to pay sustained attention.
[03:36] One-third of all American teens say that
[03:38] they're on on a social media platform
[03:41] almost constantly, just throughout the
[03:44] day.
[03:45] And the main thing they're doing on
[03:46] those social media platforms is watching
[03:48] very short videos.
[03:50] Young people call it brain rot, which is
[03:52] a funny term,
[03:54] but it might really be true because the
[03:57] adolescent brain is always
[03:59] a brain that's being remodeled.
[04:02] The neural network of a child has to
[04:05] convert itself, has to rewire itself to
[04:07] become the neural network of an adult.
[04:11] And that rewiring process, the neurons
[04:14] finding each other, that's shaped by
[04:16] whatever you're doing every day.
[04:20] And it's shaped by whatever everyone
[04:22] else says is prestigious.
[04:25] Which means that puberty is the worst
[04:27] possible time for a human being to be on
[04:31] social media.
[04:33] For our ultra-social species,
[04:35] that rewiring should be guided by huge
[04:38] amounts of social interaction in the
[04:40] real world, not by TikTok's algorithm.
[04:44] >> [applause]
[04:49] >> I imagine there's a lot of parents in
[04:50] the audience.
[04:52] So, here's the first principle of what
[04:53] we might call techno-skepticism.
[04:57] Protect brain development through
[04:59] puberty.
[05:00] That's why it's so important for
[05:01] countries to follow Australia's example.
[05:03] Let's just raise the age for opening
[05:05] social media accounts to 16, as
[05:07] Australia did.
[05:09] All right, now let's look at EdTech.
[05:11] Of course, there are good uses of
[05:13] technology in education. My kids have
[05:15] learned a lot from Khan Academy,
[05:17] but I'm very concerned about what
[05:18] happened when we started putting
[05:20] computers and tablets on kids' desks.
[05:23] This is the so-called one-to-one device
[05:25] policies.
[05:27] Computers and tablets are multi-function
[05:29] entertainment systems.
[05:31] If kids can get to the internet, they
[05:34] will play video games
[05:37] and watch short videos, watch YouTube
[05:39] shorts, and even porn.
[05:41] As soon as we brought in one-to-one
[05:42] devices in the 2010s,
[05:45] national test scores began dropping in
[05:47] the USA. [clears throat]
[05:48] And they dropped in many other
[05:50] countries, especially in the countries
[05:52] that most firmly embraced ed tech.
[05:55] Now, I can't prove that these declines
[05:57] were caused by the screens and the apps
[05:59] that we put on kids' desks.
[06:01] But consider this. Sweden led the world
[06:04] in digitizing education in the 2010s.
[06:06] They got rid of textbooks. They put a
[06:08] device on every desk.
[06:10] They even mandated that nursery schools
[06:13] had to use tablets.
[06:16] But after years of experience and years
[06:18] of declining test scores,
[06:20] Sweden reversed course.
[06:22] In 2023, they announced that they're
[06:24] going back to textbooks. They're pulling
[06:26] out a lot of the devices. They're going
[06:28] back to books and handwriting,
[06:30] especially in the earlier grades. Their
[06:32] top research institute, the Karolinska
[06:34] Institute, issued a report backing the
[06:36] government's position, saying there is
[06:39] clear scientific evidence that digital
[06:41] tools impair, rather than enhance,
[06:44] student learning.
[06:46] And consider this. Many of us professors
[06:48] are banishing computers, laptops from
[06:50] our classrooms. My students at NYU say
[06:52] they learn a lot better when people
[06:54] aren't on devices, when they don't have
[06:56] a computer and the multitasking staring
[06:58] them in the face. But if college
[06:59] students can't learn that well when
[07:01] there's a computer in front of them, how
[07:03] do we expect the 8-year-olds to do it?
[07:06] School is an intrinsically social
[07:08] experience. Students are not learning
[07:10] machines. They're ultra-social human
[07:13] beings who need to connect with their
[07:15] teachers and their fellow students.
[07:18] They don't need to connect with more
[07:20] screens.
[07:22] So, here's the second principle of
[07:23] techno-skepticism. Prioritize people and
[07:26] books in education, not screens. We
[07:29] should never have let laptops and
[07:30] tablets spread through K-12 education
[07:32] without extensive testing and evidence
[07:36] of safety and efficacy. But we're about
[07:39] to do the exact same mistake with AI.
[07:44] Do you see the pattern here?
[07:46] We let social media companies take over
[07:48] our kids' social lives,
[07:50] and they've harmed our kids' social
[07:52] lives and their mental health.
[07:55] We let EdTech companies take over our
[07:56] kids' schools,
[07:58] and they appear to be doing more harm
[08:00] than good.
[08:01] Now, AI companies are coming for their
[08:03] relationships to be their friends, their
[08:06] therapists, and even their sexual
[08:08] partners.
[08:11] What could go wrong?
[08:14] We're already seeing massive cognitive
[08:16] offloading and learning loss.
[08:18] When students have access to AI, they
[08:20] pass the critical thinking over to the
[08:23] AI.
[08:24] We're already seeing young people
[08:26] becoming dependent on ChatGPT
[08:28] to make their personal decisions and to
[08:30] draft their texts and their emails.
[08:33] And we're seeing a booming AI toy
[08:35] market. Chatbots are being put into
[08:37] dolls and teddy bears.
[08:40] And these chatbots are super responsive
[08:43] to the child. They're always there to
[08:45] offer comfort, to be there for the
[08:47] child. And of course, the parents are
[08:49] often busy.
[08:51] But if the chatbot is super responsive,
[08:53] while the parents aren't as responsive,
[08:55] the child's attachment system, which is
[08:57] looking for who in my environment is the
[08:59] person who responds to me,
[09:01] may well imprint or focus on the
[09:04] chatbot, which is going to compromise
[09:06] their relationship with their own
[09:07] parents.
[09:09] So, here's the third principle of
[09:10] techno-skepticism.
[09:12] Just be wary of artificial relationships
[09:14] for minors.
[09:16] Give them nothing that conveys that it
[09:18] understands the child
[09:20] or that it cares,
[09:22] because it doesn't.
[09:25] There could be a role for AI therapists
[09:26] someday,
[09:28] but how about we require years of
[09:30] testing
[09:31] before we let anyone push it out into
[09:33] childhood?
[09:35] >> [applause]
[09:40] >> All right. Now, I've just told you that
[09:41] we need to greatly reduce the role of
[09:43] these technologies in our kids' lives.
[09:46] And some of you may be thinking, "Oh,
[09:48] hold on a second.
[09:49] I want my child to be successful in the
[09:52] digital future and the digital
[09:54] workplace.
[09:55] So, why not give them a head start?"
[09:59] Two reasons.
[10:00] The first is that these technologies are
[10:04] extremely easy to use.
[10:06] Your kid doesn't need a 10-year head
[10:08] start to master social media and AI.
[10:13] And second,
[10:15] because now we know that being a digital
[10:18] native
[10:19] does not confer an advantage.
[10:22] For many kids, it's a curse because it
[10:24] messes with a kid's attention systems
[10:27] and their motivational systems.
[10:30] It teaches them that there's always a
[10:31] little bit of reward, always a little
[10:33] bit of dopamine available just one swipe
[10:36] away, and that undermines the ability to
[10:39] do difficult or sustained cognitive work
[10:42] like reading a book.
[10:45] I teach a course at NYU called
[10:47] Flourishing, and 2 years ago we were
[10:49] talking about attention fragmentation,
[10:51] and one of my students who's a very
[10:53] heavy TikTok user, she said, "Yeah,
[10:56] I take out a book,
[10:58] I read a sentence, I get bored,
[11:01] I go to TikTok."
[11:03] So,
[11:04] if we want our children to be successful
[11:08] in the digital future,
[11:09] we need to protect them from the damage
[11:11] being done in the digital present.
[11:15] >> [applause]
[11:19] >> So, let's return to the hive.
[11:22] What do we see when we look at
[11:23] technology and childhood through this
[11:25] lens?
[11:27] When we start from the premise that
[11:28] humans are ultra-social,
[11:31] what we see is that these technologies
[11:33] are being built
[11:35] by people who don't understand that
[11:36] premise.
[11:39] They think of people as consumers with
[11:40] social needs that can be satisfied by
[11:43] machines.
[11:44] They think it's good to free people from
[11:46] dependence on other people.
[11:48] Let's suppose, just for the sake of
[11:49] argument,
[11:51] let's suppose that they really can give
[11:53] us excellent friends and excellent
[11:56] romantic partners.
[11:57] In fact, just yesterday at lunch, Esther
[12:00] Perel told me she recently did her first
[12:02] couples therapy with a mixed couple,
[12:05] a human male and an AI female.
[12:10] So,
[12:12] is this liberation? Do we no longer have
[12:14] to depend on other people to meet our
[12:16] social needs? Would that make us happy
[12:19] if we don't have to depend on others?
[12:22] Absolutely not.
[12:24] Because that would mean that nobody
[12:25] depends on us.
[12:28] Nobody is relying on us. We are not
[12:31] important to anyone.
[12:34] So, is this our fate?
[12:37] Is there any way to stop this lonely
[12:38] digital future?
[12:41] Yes, there is.
[12:44] When the Anxious Generation came out 2
[12:46] years ago,
[12:48] one of the main objections I got was
[12:50] that I was too late. The technology's
[12:52] here to stay, people said. You can't put
[12:54] the genie back in the bottle.
[12:57] But in the last few years, humanity has
[12:59] mobilized, and we are putting the genie
[13:02] back in the bottle.
[13:04] >> [applause]
[13:09] >> Mothers were the first to organize and
[13:11] take action, but they were quickly
[13:13] joined by fathers and by a lot of Gen Z
[13:15] activist organizations, and also by many
[13:19] governors and many heads of state.
[13:22] Together, we're getting phones out of
[13:24] schools around the world.
[13:30] Teachers are so thrilled to get their
[13:32] students back. And one of the things
[13:34] that they tell us, almost it's the most
[13:36] common thing we hear, we hear laughter
[13:38] in the hallways again.
[13:41] We're getting the age raised for social
[13:43] media to 16. More than a dozen countries
[13:46] have already committed to following
[13:48] Australia's bold example. And we're
[13:50] seeing parents letting go and trusting
[13:52] their children
[13:54] to ride bicycles with their friends
[13:56] and to do errands so that they can feel
[13:58] useful.
[14:00] I'll give you one example.
[14:02] A mom in Utah gave her 7-year-old son
[14:04] the let grow challenge. That's where you
[14:06] say to a kid, "What's something that you
[14:08] think you can do on your own?" And her
[14:10] son said, "I think I can go into a
[14:12] Chick-fil-A restaurant and get us
[14:14] lunch."
[14:15] So she says, "Okay."
[14:17] And in the video, you see the mother
[14:18] sitting in the car.
[14:20] And you see the kid coming out of the
[14:21] store.
[14:22] And he's got the bags. He's got this
[14:24] huge smile. And he comes into the car.
[14:26] And he says, "That was so fun."
[14:31] And then the mom says, "Were you
[14:33] nervous?"
[14:34] And he says, "Yeah. My legs are still
[14:37] shivering, but I want to do it again."
[14:43] So these are the stories, these kinds of
[14:45] stories. This is what most moves me and
[14:47] what most thrills me. Because this
[14:48] movement is not primarily about
[14:50] technology. It's about reclaiming
[14:52] childhood in the real world with real
[14:55] people.
[14:57] So what on earth do we do about the
[14:58] robot teachers and all of the other
[15:00] future waves of technology that are
[15:01] going to push their way into childhood
[15:03] without adequate safety testing?
[15:06] It sometimes seems completely
[15:07] overwhelming. So let me repeat the three
[15:09] principles of techno-skepticism.
[15:12] One, protect brain development through
[15:15] puberty. Two, prioritize people and
[15:18] books in education, not screens. Three,
[15:21] beware of artificial relationships for
[15:24] minors.
[15:25] I think techno-skepticism is the right
[15:27] attitude for people today, especially
[15:30] for parents and legislators. Because
[15:32] when it comes to children,
[15:34] these companies have earned our
[15:36] distrust.
[15:38] Techno-skepticism means that from now
[15:40] on, we put the burden of proof on them.
[15:43] Let them prove that their products are
[15:44] safe.
[15:45] We treat them like any other maker of
[15:47] potentially dangerous consumer products.
[15:50] We make them prove that their products
[15:52] are safe before they push them out into
[15:54] the world. And we hold them responsible.
[15:57] >> [applause]
[16:02] >> We hold them responsible for their
[16:04] safety lapses.
[16:06] So, in conclusion,
[16:08] human beings are ultra-social creatures
[16:10] who need to matter to one another in
[16:13] order to flourish.
[16:14] We are so brilliant that we've invented
[16:17] technologies that can replace us, that
[16:19] can take us out of each other's lives.
[16:22] But human connection is not optional.
[16:25] It's who we are.
[16:27] So, we're going to have to fight for a
[16:28] future
[16:30] in which our children can grow
[16:32] into flourishing, connected adults.
[16:36] Thank you.
[16:38] >> [applause]
[16:44] [applause]
[16:46] >> Do you like disagree with anything I
[16:47] said?
[16:49] >> We agree in spirit 100% and that's where
[16:53] my question is actually. And we we we
[16:55] have talked about this in the past even
[16:57] before TED. But how
[17:01] how extreme would you go?
[17:04] What would you say to someone that would
[17:06] make the argument that, you know, even
[17:07] put Khan Academy aside,
[17:09] if a student is writing their paper, if
[17:11] they're editing video, if they're doing
[17:13] something creative and you know, they're
[17:15] building some some skills in the
[17:17] process. Isn't there some middle ground
[17:19] that might be okay?
[17:20] >> Well, it depends on the age. So, if
[17:21] we're talking elementary school, I would
[17:23] say no. I would say it's so clear kids
[17:26] need to learn basic skills. They need to
[17:27] develop the habit of books. There's all
[17:28] this research on how print is better.
[17:30] For elementary school, let's just get
[17:31] rid of all the one-to-one devices, go
[17:33] back to books and paper.
[17:35] >> [applause]
[17:36] >> The people who made this technology,
[17:38] they choose a lot of them choose to send
[17:39] their kids to schools that don't have
[17:40] it. So, when talking about young kids, I
[17:42] say just no. Like until it's proven
[17:44] safe, no. But, I think we learned
[17:46] something really interesting today. So,
[17:47] that I I forget her name, that amazing
[17:49] woman in in Africa who's giving
[17:52] Okay. So, two So, no. No internet.
[17:55] That's the key. And this I said to you
[17:58] like years ago, I said, "Sal, if someone
[18:00] would make a device that just had Khan
[18:03] Academy, you could not go to YouTube.
[18:05] You could not do anything. That would be
[18:07] amazing."
[18:08] >> Will you agree I'm raising money for
[18:10] this? Anyone want to
[18:12] Someone has to make this.
[18:14] Do you I mean do you agree with that?
[18:15] >> I was fishing for that all night. So,
[18:16] yes. [laughter] Thank you. Thank you.
[18:19] No, well well thank you so much,
[18:20] Jonathan. A super important
[18:21] conversation. Thank you.
[18:22] >> Thank you, Sal.
[18:24] >> [applause]
Comments
Be the first to comment on this video.