New Podcast Release: Jonathan Haidt

The latest episode of "Lives Well Lived," the podcast I co-host with Kasia de Lazari-Radek, is now available.

In this episode, Kasia and I had the pleasure of speaking with Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and author known for his exploration of moral psychology and its impact on society. Below are some highlights from our conversation, lightly edited for clarity. You can now listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred platform.

On Moral Foundations and Political Polarization:

Jon Haidt: "There's a tension in every society between people who say we need to change everything, we need to knock down these old things and move ahead, versus people who say no, wait, slow down, don't just take down our institutions."

"What we're seeing in America is that the Democratic Party has lost touch with liberalism in some sense, and the Republican Party has lost touch with conservatism."

The Social Media Addiction:

Jon Haidt: "With social media, the extremes on each side have now been super empowered, supercharged. [The social media developers] studied how the brain works. They studied addiction. They studied how adolescents have an underdeveloped frontal cortex but are emotion-centered. They knew what they were doing and did it consciously."

On the Impact of Technology on Society:

Jon Haidt: "When the early internet comes in, it was amazing. The early internet, nobody owned it. You couldn't make money from it. It was just ‘I put up information, you put up information,’ blogs, it was amazing. And the millennials who were teenagers at the time loved it, and their mental health is fine. But then you get a series of technical innovations in rapid succession from 2007 to about 2012 that change everything."

On The Mental Health Crisis Among Adolescents:

Jon Haidt: "There's been a tidal wave that washed a lot of kids, especially girls, out to sea. They became anxious, depressed, fragile, while for other kids, it seemed the wave passed over them."

Closing Thoughts:

Peter Singer: "Jon, thank you for sharing these insights. Your work on moral psychology and its implications for modern society continues to be crucial in understanding the challenges we face today."

Jon Haidt: "Thank you, Peter. It's been a pleasure to discuss these issues with you and Kasia. I hope that our conversation helps shed light on the complexities of moral foundations and the impact of technology on society."