Jonathan Haidt Strikes Again + What You Vibecoded + An Update on the Forkiverse
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It's your day to play.
It's your morning to make the most of.
It's your way to love.
It's your climate to consider.
It's your answer to what should I watch? It's your money to save.
It's your song to analyze line by line.
It's your 10 ways to find a little calm. It's your world to understand.
The New York Times. Find out more at nytimes.com slash your world.
Casey, did you hear about the new vehicle that stole the show at CES this year? What vehicle was that? It was from our good friend Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, who we interviewed once in a very, I would describe as a psychedelic experience. Absolute fever dream of a day. Well, he is out with a new electric AI-powered brain on wheels. It is essentially an electric tricycle. It's called Trinity, and it looks insane.
Can I show you this?
I need to see this. Okay.
Oh, my goodness. This looks like the head of the xenomorph in Alien has been decapitated and has had wheels attached to it.
Yes, it looks insane. It's like a three wheeled electric sort of scooter with a top over it. Very sleek, very aerodynamic. I personally would love to die in one of these. Yeah. I would love to just be absolutely demolished by an 18-wheeler in one of these.
This actually does, like, just looking at this, this does seem to me like it would be Will.i.am's favorite mode of transportation. Like, I can just imagine him. It's like time to take the kids to school. And he's like, get in this thing, guys. We're going to be 2,000 and late.
That's a Black Eyed Peas joke. Oh, let's get this party started. I'm Kevin Russo, tech columnist at the New York Times. I'm Casey Newton from Platformer. And this is Hard Fork.
This week, anxious generation author Jonathan Haidt returns to the show with new research on how social media is harming teens. Then, we asked you for your Claude Code experiments, and you blew us away. We'll share some of our favorites. And finally, it's a trip to the Forkiverse. Thousands of you have now joined our Fediverse experiment, and Search Engine host PJ Vogt is here to talk about what we've learned so far. such as Vladimir Putin? He's a problem.
Not a good guy.
Well, Keith, we've got a big show this week, lots to talk about, but let's start with social media, because there's been a lot happening in that world.
Yeah, you know, last week we talked about the nudification scandal over at Grok, and there's been a bunch more news about that this week. The U.S. Senate managed to pass a bill on Tuesday that would allow victims of these sorts of non-consensual, sexually explicit images to sue over the creation of those images.
Sure. And Grok also rolled back its image generation feature for free users. You now have to be a paid user to Grok to notify people against their consent.
If you want to commit a crime, that's a premium feature now, okay? That's going to be behind the paywall.
Yes. So they are not rolling that back fully, of course, because it is generating a huge amount of engagement for them. But they do seem to acknowledge that some people were taking it too far. Yeah.
That's right, Kevin. And it is really this exact sort of phenomenon that is happening on social media that has led our guests this week to really lead a charge and say, when it comes to younger people, we actually just need to keep them away from this stuff altogether.
Yes. This name of our guest today, Jonathan Haidt, will be familiar to longtime Hard Fork listeners. He came on the show back in March 2024 when his book, The Anxious Generation, came out. Since that time, that book has become a mega bestseller. Jonathan has become a leading advocate for things like phone bans in schools and these social media restrictions like the one we talked about in Australia that just went into effect. And there's been a lot of discussion about Haidt's thesis that social media and widespread smartphone use is harming mental health for kids and teens. And a lot of arguments about the science in that book, whether the studies that Haidt and others have cited as proof that social media is harming children are actually holding up under scrutiny.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–16:21
2
What evidence does Jonathan Haidt cite that social media causes harm to teens?
16:21–26:37
3
How does Haidt explain the mechanisms—like sextortion and bullying—by which social media harms kids?
26:37–34:56
4
What policy and practical solutions does Haidt propose for protecting children from social media?
34:56–54:31
5
How has becoming a public advocate changed Jonathan Haidt’s work and influence?
54:31–1:16:34
Speakers
8 identifiedMore from Hard Fork
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Zuckerberg’s Anti-Doom Fantasy + Finally an A.I. Detector That Works + A.I. Math