Jonathan Haidt

I'll just start by saying first, does your son have a flip phone or a basic phone now or does he have nothing?

Okay. Well, I would suggest that if he's still in middle school, don't give him a smartphone. Give him a better basic phone. There's the light phone, the gab phone. There are a lot of phones that have some functions. It's fine for your kid to be texting with his friends. It's not fine for strangers to be interacting with your son over Snapchat or Instagram or TikTok. That is not fine.

Okay. Well, I would suggest that if he's still in middle school, don't give him a smartphone. Give him a better basic phone. There's the light phone, the gab phone. There are a lot of phones that have some functions. It's fine for your kid to be texting with his friends. It's not fine for strangers to be interacting with your son over Snapchat or Instagram or TikTok. That is not fine.

Okay. Well, I would suggest that if he's still in middle school, don't give him a smartphone. Give him a better basic phone. There's the light phone, the gab phone. There are a lot of phones that have some functions. It's fine for your kid to be texting with his friends. It's not fine for strangers to be interacting with your son over Snapchat or Instagram or TikTok. That is not fine.

And so, yeah, so don't just assume that you have to go right to a smartphone in middle school. Catherine, what would you say?

And so, yeah, so don't just assume that you have to go right to a smartphone in middle school. Catherine, what would you say?

And so, yeah, so don't just assume that you have to go right to a smartphone in middle school. Catherine, what would you say?

Yeah. No, thank you for that, Pete. AI is going to be the biggest technological change in human history, most likely, from what I read and what I hear. And I think it's going to affect our kids in two ways. The most immediate effect is that all the addictive parts of the technology are going to get a lot better.

Yeah. No, thank you for that, Pete. AI is going to be the biggest technological change in human history, most likely, from what I read and what I hear. And I think it's going to affect our kids in two ways. The most immediate effect is that all the addictive parts of the technology are going to get a lot better.

Yeah. No, thank you for that, Pete. AI is going to be the biggest technological change in human history, most likely, from what I read and what I hear. And I think it's going to affect our kids in two ways. The most immediate effect is that all the addictive parts of the technology are going to get a lot better.

The video games are going to be even better at hooking your sons and keeping them there. The social media is going to be even better at sending your daughters and your sons whatever it is that will keep them going. So all the current problems are going to get a lot worse as AI comes in.

The video games are going to be even better at hooking your sons and keeping them there. The social media is going to be even better at sending your daughters and your sons whatever it is that will keep them going. So all the current problems are going to get a lot worse as AI comes in.

The video games are going to be even better at hooking your sons and keeping them there. The social media is going to be even better at sending your daughters and your sons whatever it is that will keep them going. So all the current problems are going to get a lot worse as AI comes in.

Generative AI is going to mean that we're going to be flooded by videos of people, you know, your child might be in a video and it might be her own voice and she might be naked and she had nothing to do with it. It's going to give everybody the ability to make a movie of anyone doing anything and saying anything in their voice. So that's really scary. That is scary.

Generative AI is going to mean that we're going to be flooded by videos of people, you know, your child might be in a video and it might be her own voice and she might be naked and she had nothing to do with it. It's going to give everybody the ability to make a movie of anyone doing anything and saying anything in their voice. So that's really scary. That is scary.

Generative AI is going to mean that we're going to be flooded by videos of people, you know, your child might be in a video and it might be her own voice and she might be naked and she had nothing to do with it. It's going to give everybody the ability to make a movie of anyone doing anything and saying anything in their voice. So that's really scary. That is scary.

The other major problem is that we're already seeing sites like Character AI making AI friends for us. So our kids got suddenly very lonely in 2012. That's when all the loneliness graphs go up. As soon as they move their social life from talking to their friends in person or on the telephone to swiping and posting and commenting, which is not real connection, that's when they got lonely.

The other major problem is that we're already seeing sites like Character AI making AI friends for us. So our kids got suddenly very lonely in 2012. That's when all the loneliness graphs go up. As soon as they move their social life from talking to their friends in person or on the telephone to swiping and posting and commenting, which is not real connection, that's when they got lonely.

The other major problem is that we're already seeing sites like Character AI making AI friends for us. So our kids got suddenly very lonely in 2012. That's when all the loneliness graphs go up. As soon as they move their social life from talking to their friends in person or on the telephone to swiping and posting and commenting, which is not real connection, that's when they got lonely.

So what's the cure for the fact that the technology has made our kids so lonely? Oh, I guess the cure is artificial friends who will talk to your child and be very comforting and always there to listen. I can't think of a better way to stunt human development than to surround our kids with the perfect friends. When they hit teen years, it's going to be the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend.