One year on, Jonathan Haidt talks about the way his book changed the global conversation around children and digital devices \u2013 and explains how he handles his own teenagers<\/p>\n
Jonathan Haidt is a man with a mission. You\u2019ll have to forgive the cliche, because it\u2019s literally true. The author of The Anxious Generation<\/a>, an urgent warning about the effect of digital tech on young minds, is based at New York University\u2019s business school: \u201cI\u2019m around all these corporate types and we\u2019re always talking about companies and their mission statements,\u201d he tells me. So, he decided to make one for himself. \u201cIt was very simple: \u2018My mission is to use my research in moral psychology and that of others to help people better understand each other, and to help important social institutions work well.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n This is characteristic of Haidt: there\u2019s the risk that writing your own brand manifesto might seem a bit, well, pompous. What comes across instead is the nerd\u2019s desire to be as effective as possible, combined with the positive psychologist\u2019s love of self-improvement (one of his signature undergraduate courses is called Flourishing, which sets students homework such as \u201ccatch and analyse 10 automatic thoughts\u201d).<\/p>\n