Jonathan Haidt

Take everything important out of childhood and replace it with millions and millions of 15-second TikTok videos and Instagram posts.

That's what we've done.

So we can't expect our kids to grow up to be confident, creative, good performers if we don't give them a childhood that nature evolved for us in order to bring humans from childhood to adulthood.

We have overprotected our children in the real world and we've underprotected them online.

Oh, yeah.

Let's see what we can see about technology and childhood if we start with this premise that human beings are ultra-social creatures with deep needs for community and communion.

So what on earth do we do about the robot teachers and all of the other future waves of technology that are going to push their way into childhood without adequate safety testing?

Technoskepticism means that from now on, we put the burden of proof on them.

We make them prove that their products are safe before they push them out into the world.

So to begin, I invite you all to remember a time in your life, a period in your life when you felt fully integrated into a group.

Maybe you were on a sports team, maybe you played in a band, or maybe you just had a great group of friends that loved to hang out together.

Or maybe it was at work, maybe you were part of a team trying to do something big and difficult under time pressure, but you all pulled together.

Whatever it was, my question to you is, does that memory glow?

Do you look back on that as something special and magical, that time in your life?

The great biologist E.O.

Wilson says 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 we 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.