Should Smartphones Be Blamed for the Youth Mental-Health Crisis?

WSJ Tech News Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

Tech News, News

4.3 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt blames tech for teen anxiety in his latest book. He also is confronting allegations of junk science. WSJ family and tech columnist Julie Jargon joins host Zoe Thomas to discuss Haidt’s conclusions and the blowback. Plus, WSJ tech columnist Christopher Mims explains what he got wrong in 10 years of tech predictions and what can be learned from those errors. Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:15.5	slash Wall Street.
0:17.0	Welcome to Tech News Briefing.
0:22.0	It's Monday, May 20th. I'm Zoe Thomas for the Wall Street Journal.
0:26.0	A lot has changed in the past decade, especially in the world of tech.
0:31.0	In 2014, one in four people on Earth had a smartphone. Today, nearly
0:36.4	three quarters of people have them. Also ten years ago, W.S.J's Christopher Mims started his tech column. He's going to join us to talk about the
0:45.5	predictions he got wrong and what they tell us about the tech sector today. And then, a best-selling author and social psychologist is calling on parents to take
0:56.3	away their children's smartphones to help combat the youth mental health crisis.
1:01.5	But some critics say he doesn't have the data to back up his claims.
1:05.7	Our family and tech columnist Julie Jargan will join us to discuss Jonathan Heights book, The
1:10.4	anxious generation.
1:19.0	But first, for 10 years, tech columnist Christopher Mims has been making predictions
1:21.0	about the future of the industry.
1:23.8	And in that time, well, he's gotten a lot wrong.
1:27.8	And Christopher is here to help unpack what we can learn from some of those errors.
1:32.4	So Christopher, let's talk about what you call the most
1:35.6	worshipped idle in all of tech, the notion of disruption, a small nimble startup overtaking
1:41.4	its biggest rivals. You say this is overblown. Why?
1:46.1	Disruption, you know, people like to talk about it a lot because it's a great way to
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