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Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt Quotes

Psychologist

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Famous Jonathan Haidt Quotes

“Girls in virtual networks are subjected to hundreds of times more social comparison than girls had experienced for all of human evolution. They are exposed to more cruelty and bullying because social media platforms incentivize and facilitate relational aggression. Their openness and willingness to share emotions with other girls espouses them to depression and other disorders. The twisted incentive structures of social media reward the most extreme presentations of symptoms.”

SexWomenCompetitionSocial MediaAdulthoodEvolutionary PsychologyEating DisordersCriticPerfect Body
Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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“While fear triggers the full response system at the moment of danger, anxiety triggers parts of the same system when a threat is merely perceived as possible. It is healthy to be anxious and on alert when one is in a situation where there really could be dangers lurking. But when our alarm bell is on a hair trigger so that it is frequently activated by ordinary events- including many that pose no real threat-it keeps us in a perpetual state of distress. This is when ordinary, healthy, temporary anxiety turns into an anxiety disorder.”

FearHealthAnxietyDisorderEvolutionary Psychology
Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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“Sports are not exactly spiritual, but playing them depends on some of spirituality’s key ingredients for bonding people together, like coordinated and collective physical movement and group celebrations. Research consistently shows that teen who play team sports are happier than those who don’t. humans are embodied; a phone-based life is not. Screens lead us to forget that our physical bodies matter.”

ReligionCommunitySocietyRitualEvolutionary PsychologyBondCohesionCollective Effervescence
Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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“The simple act of eating together, especially from the same plate or serving dish, strengthens that bond and reduces the likelihood of conflict. This is one deficiency the virtual world can never overcome, no matter how good VR gets.”

ReligionCommunitySocietyRitualEvolutionary PsychologyBondCohesionCollective Effervescence
Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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“In short, there is no consensual structuring of time, space, or objects around which people can use their ancient programming for sacredness to create religious or quasi-religious communities. Everything is available to every individual, all the time, with little or no effort. There is no Sabbath and there are no holy days. Everything is profane. Living in a world of structureless anomie makes adolescents more vulnerable to online recruitment into radical political movements that offer moral clarity and a moral community, thereby pulling them further away from their in-person communities.”

CommunitySocietyRitualEvolutionary PsychologyBondCohesionSmartphonesGen ZVirtual Life
Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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“Children need a great deal of free play to thrive. It’s an imperative that’s evident across all mammal species. The small scale challenged and setbacks that happen during play are like an inoculation that prepares children to face much larger challenges later.”

PlayRelationshipsCommunityEvolutionary PsychologySocial AnxietyLeisure TimeSocial RelationsMental Development
Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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“The key factor is the commitment required to make relationships work. When people are raised in a community that they cannot easily escape, they do what our ancestors have done for millions of years: They learn how to manage relationships, and how to manage themselves and their emotions in order to keep those precious relationships going. There are certainly many online communities that have found ways to create strong interpersonal commitments and a feeling of belonging. but in general, when children are raised in multiple mutating networks where they don't need to use their real names and they can quit with the click of a button, they are less likely to learn such skills.”

RelationshipsCommunityEvolutionary PsychologySocial AnxietySocial RelationsMental Development
Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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“…overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world-are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.”

RelationshipsCommunityEvolutionary PsychologySocial AnxietySocial RelationsMental Development
Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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“Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and- as I will show-unsuitable for children and adolescents. Succeeding socially in that universe required them to devote a large part of their consciousness-perpetually-to managing what became their online brand. This was now necessary to gain acceptance from peers, which is the oxygen of adolescence, and to avoid online shaming, which is the nightmare of adolescence. Gen Z teens got sucked into spending many hours of each day scrolling through the shiny happy posts of friends, acquaintances, and distant influencers.”

RelationshipsCommunityTeensEvolutionary PsychologySocial AnxietySocial RelationsGen Z2010Mental DevelopmentWoke Generation
Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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“La conclusión es que la mente humana está preparada para el tribalismo. La evolución humana no es sólo la historia de unos individuos que compiten con otros dentro de cada grupo; es también la historia de grupos que compiten contra otros, a veces con violencia.”

MoralEvolutionary PsychologyEvolucionEmpatiaTribalSesgoPsucologia
Book:The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure
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“Todos descendemos de personas que pertenecieron a grupos que fueron constantemente mejores para ganar esa competición. El tribalismo es nuestra herencia evolutiva para agruparnos y prepararnos para el conflicto intergrupal.”

MoralEvolutionary PsychologyEvolucionEmpatiaTribalSesgoPsucologia
Book:The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure
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