Your Screen Is Changing Your Brain. Take Back Control, with Jonathan Haidt

Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel

Careers, Business

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2026

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you feel like your attention span has shrunk, you’re not imagining it. According to social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, our phones and social platforms have fundamentally reshaped childhood, work, and our ability to focus. In his bestselling book The Anxious Generation, Jon argues that the rise of smartphones and social media triggered what he calls the “great rewiring of childhood.” But the consequences extend far beyond kids. In this episode of Hello Monday, Jessi talks with Jon about what constant connectivity is doing to our minds,how we got here, and why reclaiming our attention may be one of the most important challenges of our time. Jon and Jess discuss: How smartphones reshaped adolescent development Why social media use is linked strongly to rising anxiety and depression among young people How tech platforms are intentionally designed to capture and fragment our attention Why today’s digital tools isolate people Practical steps families, workplaces, and individuals can take to reclaim focus and develop healthier tech habits Why restoring unstructured play, independence, and boredom is critical for healthy development At its core, this conversation asks a simple question: What happens when an entire society loses control of its attention, and how do we get it back? Find Jon’s new book for kids, The Amazing Generation: Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World, here. Follow Jonathan Haidt and Jessi Hempel on LinkedIn.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Can you imagine any other industry in which companies made vast amounts of money from children?
0:06.0	And there were credible charges from a lot of parents that this thing had killed their children.
0:10.0	And 30% of the girls who used this product said,
0:13.0	It has harmed my mental health.
0:15.0	And leaks from the company said, we are harming their mental health.
0:18.0	If there was any other consumer product that had this record,
0:21.1	it would have been banned and sued into non-existence instantly.
0:25.1	And for some reason, we've just accepted technologies inevitable.
0:28.1	Well, what are you going to do?
0:30.1	Well, guess what? We can do something.
0:35.6	From LinkedIn News, I'm Jesse Hempel and this is Hello Monday.
0:39.3	Now, I think most of you all know that I have a seven-year-old and a newly five-year-old,
0:44.3	and we talk a lot about screen time in our household, or rather, we argue about it.
0:50.3	That's why today's guest, Jonathan Haightt is kind of a celebrity in our household.
0:56.0	He is the social psychologist and professor at NYU's Stern School of Business who wrote The Anxious Generation.
1:04.0	I'm sure you've heard of the book. You probably know John for exactly this work around the negative mental health impact of screens and social media for kids.
1:13.6	But you know, after publishing The Anxious Generation, John realized that we're facing an even bigger problem caused by our screen time.
1:22.6	And that's the diminishing of attention broadly.
1:25.6	And yeah, I worry about that for my kids, but this is a problem that you and I are suffering as well.
1:31.3	In this episode, John and I talk about the great rewiring of childhood,
1:35.3	how both kids and adults become addicted to our screens,
1:39.3	and we get into some solutions to get us back in control of our attention.
	...

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