Kids Don't Need Phones with Jonathan Haidt

Honestly with Bari Weiss

The Free Press

News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 7.8K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2025

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

You probably know Jonathan Haidt as the guy trying to save your kids from smartphones and social media apps. Likely you’ve read The Anxious Generation, which has been translated into 44 languages and sold nearly 2 million copies. One might say that Jon is Elvis for 21st century moms who don't understand Discord. But when Haidt gets written about decades from now, it will be for much more than this book and the powerful movement that came out of it. He will be regarded as one of the most important writers of this epoch. Because he has this remarkable ability to understand—and explain—our social condition. He holds up a mirror to us. He did it with his book The Righteous Mind, which explained why people are so passionately divided over politics and religion. He did it again with The Coddling of the American Mind, cowritten with Greg Lukianoff, which explored why young people—especially on college campuses—can become totally intolerant of opposing views. And in his latest book, The Anxious Generation, he asked the obvious question: Why are teens suddenly so unhappy? Why are they losing attention, self-confidence, and the ability to socialize? Perhaps it has something to do with the mesmerizing device in their hands. In a world gone mad, Haidt has turned common sense into a radical mission. Bari sat down with him in front of a live audience in New York City to talk about how we got here—and where we go from here. Learn more about Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude at: Claude.ai/honestly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, everyone. Barry here with a really exciting announcement that I want to share with you.
0:05.2	For a limited time, and this happens like truly once a year, we have a very special offer at the free press.
0:12.0	You can get 25% off, unbelievable deal, an annual free press subscription by going right now to
0:20.0	VFP.com slash subscribe.
0:23.7	Don't worry. We're going to add the link in the description of this episode.
0:27.5	If you've been wanting full access to everything the free press does, essays, investigations,
0:33.7	live streams, early access to ticketing, and more, now is the perfect time to upgrade to a paid
0:40.6	subscription for 25% off your first year. Paid free press subscribers now also get bonus podcast
0:48.3	episodes and reduced ads. If you're already a paid subscriber, this is the perfect opportunity
0:54.0	to gift a free press
0:55.5	subscription to someone you love. To unlock the full free press experience and join our community
1:00.7	or to share that community with someone in your life, take advantage of this limited time deal.
1:06.3	It's available right now, so go to thefp.com slash subscribe.
1:13.9	From the free press, this is honestly, and I'm Barry Weiss.
1:18.5	It's no secret that smartphones and social media have transformed childhood,
1:24.4	and most would say for the worse, making kids more anxious, depressed, exhausted,
1:30.0	and addicted than they ever have been before. But one man has given moms and dads across
1:36.3	the country a reason to hope, and that man is Jonathan Haidt. Few people have been more influential
1:42.6	in both sounding the alarm
1:44.7	and offering real solutions to the crisis that our kids are facing.
1:49.9	You probably know him as the man leading the movement to restore play,
1:54.0	to get phones out of our schools,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 1 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Free Press, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Free Press and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.