Jonathan Haidt

So it's not so much about becoming a digital monk and renouncing technology because technology can serve us, right?

It inspires, educates, connects.

Now more than ever, it's so important to be an informed citizen.

Mm-hmm.

Because that's the only place in the whole day where you are not with your device.

People take their device to the bathroom.

They sleep with your device.

You eat with your device.

People walk down the street.

There's more near-miss pedestrian accidents because people are walking while they're crossing the street and looking at their devices.

And so there's all of this brain biology at play behind the scenes.

So both of you have...

talked about how it doesn't feel good to engage and constantly be on your phone, that sense of infinite scroll.

But there is, you know, it feels like you're doing nothing.

You're just doing this, right?

What are you doing?

But in fact, it is not passive, it is active, and it has a profound effect on your biology, on your brain, on your psychology, and also social factors that I hope we talk about today.

The biggest threat right now, we don't even have to wait 20 years, is that through a process called neuroplasticity, which is just a big fancy word that simply means that your brain is a muscle, is that by engaging with social media, that sense of high volume, low quality, quick videos, you are actively rewiring your brain for the worst.

So you're increasing your sense of stress.

worsening your mental health, attention, cognition, distractibility, irritability, complex problem solving.