“Don’t Be So Certain Social Media Is Undermining Democracy”

 

The sweeping generalization of social media harms.

 

Prof. Jonathan Haidt, author of Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid (his answer: social media), published a sequel, Yes, Social Media Really Is Undermining Democracy.

 

These claims are not empirically grounded. Many popular narratives are overstated.

Correlation does not imply causation, and we have contradictory findings.

 

Here’s my detailed response:

Don’t Be So Certain Social Media Is Undermining Democracy

Illustration: Jonathan Haidt on Vacation

(I asked OpenAI’s DallE for “a man shouting at a leaning tower of Pisa, digital art.” It came out too good. 

But you need to read Haidt’s Babel metaphor first).