With regard to "the backlash to the backlash" - I think it's almost forgotten by now how thoroughly invested the liberal and left critics in question were in the type of 1990s-2000s techno-utopian ideology represented by Wired, Boing Boing, the concept of the "blogosphere", minimalist Apple industrial design, and so on. After he died a more or less preventable death in 2011, pretty much every Apple store turned into an impromptu memorial for Steve Jobs, who, after all, is more responsible than anyone else for the proliferation of smartphones.
A lot of this stuff was just intellectualized ad copy for tech companies, but there was some more sophisticated thinking that appealed to some very deep liberal bedrock beliefs that are (or were) widely held. Information wants to be free, self-expression should always be encouraged, connectivity is the best basis for empathy, asynchronous and synchronous communication are as good as each other, and so on. In 2010 or so, these all seemed pretty self-evident, at least to me. If Haidt is right, and we gave to our kids these devices that enable communication, information retrieval, self-expression, and connection on previously impossible levels, and the main effect it had was to make our kids miserable...well, it raises questions about the veracity of these precepts (or at least their clean implementation in the real world) in a way that makes liberals feel very uncomfortable.
I like the framework of online vs real-world interactions being asynchronous vs synchronous because it seems to explain other behavioral styles of those who spend more of their lives online. Stemming from this, the review makes me think this analysis can be helpful in more contexts than just kids’ behavior and mental health — e.g. I think we’re actually seeing some effects of growing up online in the workplace now. Younger colleagues I’ve seen deliver strong work asynchronously, but can struggle to work and experiment “live” together. Does this stem from the same thing? Who knows, I should probably read the book before I speculate too much.
Something I just noticed that might be of interest to others reading this article: it looks like the audiobook of this is available for free on Spotify if you have premium.
As a zillenial, I actually don’t use social media or am on my phone often but I am anxious mostly and so are many in my gen because I see this insanity and breakdown of our society with people like Trump people becoming President, abortion rights being lost, governments letting predatory loan companies get away with saddling us with massive debt and gov refusing to cover it because “it’s expensive” and yet paying 30x that amount to commit genocide, the rich dodging taxes, and especially especially the insane rent prizes and lack of stability and wages not keeping up with price of living . Wages are low but prices keep ballooning , rent is INSANE even if cheap areas esp since most housing is owned by a few giant companies and when you’re paying massive rent , you can’t have savings, you can’t have financial security and you can’t own property even if it was at an insane price because you never get to save enough for a down payment esp with all the other costs ! So we end up constantly anxious since our rent might double every year if people feel like to and since no matter what, it’s going to increase next week, the worry is “how much”. So yeah of course we are anxious , we are wage slaves working insane hours a week and doing “side hustles” which are second jobs
With regard to "the backlash to the backlash" - I think it's almost forgotten by now how thoroughly invested the liberal and left critics in question were in the type of 1990s-2000s techno-utopian ideology represented by Wired, Boing Boing, the concept of the "blogosphere", minimalist Apple industrial design, and so on. After he died a more or less preventable death in 2011, pretty much every Apple store turned into an impromptu memorial for Steve Jobs, who, after all, is more responsible than anyone else for the proliferation of smartphones.
A lot of this stuff was just intellectualized ad copy for tech companies, but there was some more sophisticated thinking that appealed to some very deep liberal bedrock beliefs that are (or were) widely held. Information wants to be free, self-expression should always be encouraged, connectivity is the best basis for empathy, asynchronous and synchronous communication are as good as each other, and so on. In 2010 or so, these all seemed pretty self-evident, at least to me. If Haidt is right, and we gave to our kids these devices that enable communication, information retrieval, self-expression, and connection on previously impossible levels, and the main effect it had was to make our kids miserable...well, it raises questions about the veracity of these precepts (or at least their clean implementation in the real world) in a way that makes liberals feel very uncomfortable.
I like the framework of online vs real-world interactions being asynchronous vs synchronous because it seems to explain other behavioral styles of those who spend more of their lives online. Stemming from this, the review makes me think this analysis can be helpful in more contexts than just kids’ behavior and mental health — e.g. I think we’re actually seeing some effects of growing up online in the workplace now. Younger colleagues I’ve seen deliver strong work asynchronously, but can struggle to work and experiment “live” together. Does this stem from the same thing? Who knows, I should probably read the book before I speculate too much.
Something I just noticed that might be of interest to others reading this article: it looks like the audiobook of this is available for free on Spotify if you have premium.
As a zillenial, I actually don’t use social media or am on my phone often but I am anxious mostly and so are many in my gen because I see this insanity and breakdown of our society with people like Trump people becoming President, abortion rights being lost, governments letting predatory loan companies get away with saddling us with massive debt and gov refusing to cover it because “it’s expensive” and yet paying 30x that amount to commit genocide, the rich dodging taxes, and especially especially the insane rent prizes and lack of stability and wages not keeping up with price of living . Wages are low but prices keep ballooning , rent is INSANE even if cheap areas esp since most housing is owned by a few giant companies and when you’re paying massive rent , you can’t have savings, you can’t have financial security and you can’t own property even if it was at an insane price because you never get to save enough for a down payment esp with all the other costs ! So we end up constantly anxious since our rent might double every year if people feel like to and since no matter what, it’s going to increase next week, the worry is “how much”. So yeah of course we are anxious , we are wage slaves working insane hours a week and doing “side hustles” which are second jobs