Extremely online
Jonathan Haidt says he knows what’s driving the teen mental-health crisis: addictive, distraction-laden, horror-filled apps like Instagram and TikTok. That’s the thesis of the New York University social psychologist’s book, The Anxious Generation, an instant sensation in parenting circles and a New York Times bestseller this spring.
Then a study appeared in a scientific journal. Chris Ferguson, a psychologist at Stetson University, in Florida, reported that he’d analyzed dozens of experiments and reached a conclusion that undermined Haidt, whom he named. “Reducing social-media time,” he announced on X, formerly Twitter, “has NO impact on mental health.”
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Clarification (Nov. 4, 2024, 3:08 p.m.): A previous version of this article characterized a blog post by Stein as stating that the research analyzed by Ferguson actually supports reducing social-media use. It has been updated to clarify that the post states that Ferguson's meta-analysis “should not be used to argue that there’s no experimental evidence" that reducing social-media use affects mental health.