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Jonathan Haidt, portrait

Photo: Miller Center of Public Affairs flickr page, Charlottesville, VA / CC BY 2.0

Academic

Jonathan Haidt

Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, NYU Stern School of Business

Press citations

5

Topic

1

Mental health

Last quoted

Oct 2026

Jonathan Haidt: key facts

Kind of voice
Academic
Role
Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership
Organisation
NYU Stern School of Business
Quoted on
Mental health
Tracked press citations
5
Most recently quoted
4 Oct 2026

Who Jonathan Haidt is

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business, where he joined in 2011. He received his PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and previously taught for sixteen years at the University of Virginia. Since 2018 he has focused on how smartphones and social media are affecting the mental health of young people, research that led to his 2024 book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, which reached number one on the Sunday Times bestseller list and was reviewed in the British Journal of General Practice. He argues that the replacement of play-based childhood by phone-based childhood is a primary driver of rising rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide among adolescents in the UK and other countries, and has appeared at Intelligence Squared events in London in conversation with BBC presenters to make this case. He has written more than 100 academic articles, cited over 100,000 times, and in 2019 was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

“Haidt came to prominence after writing Anxious Generation, in which he argued that widespread use of smartphones had caused a mental health crisis for young people.”

References for this biography

  1. 1.Jonathan Haidt – NYU Stern faculty biography — Confirms current role as Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, joined NYU Stern 2011, 100+ academic articles cited 100,000+ times, inducted American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2019, TIME100 Health leader, links to Twitter/X
  2. 2.Biography – JonathanHaidt.com — Confirms role at NYU Stern, PhD from University of Pennsylvania, focus since 2018 on social media and teen mental health, The Anxious Generation as #1 NYT bestseller (2024)
  3. 3.Book review: The Anxious Generation – British Journal of General Practice, June 2024 — Confirms the book was reviewed in a UK clinical journal (BJGP), establishing UK health-press presence
  4. 4.The Anxious Generation: Jonathan Haidt on How Smartphones Rewired Childhood – Intelligence Squared — Confirms Haidt appeared at Intelligence Squared London in April 2024 in conversation with BBC presenter Sarah Montague, and that the book reached number one on the Sunday Times bestsellers
  5. 5.Jonathan Haidt on How to Free the Anxious Generation – Intelligence Squared (April 2025) — Confirms a second London appearance in April 2025, in conversation with BBC journalist Jonny Dymond, addressing youth mental health
  6. 6.Jonathan Haidt – American Academy of Arts and Sciences — Confirms induction into American Academy of Arts and Sciences and summarises key academic contributions
  7. 7.The Anxious Generation – Penguin UK — Confirms UK publication of The Anxious Generation and reviews in the Telegraph, Guardian, and Evening Standard

Notable achievements

  • The Anxious Generation (2024) reached number one on the Sunday Times bestseller list and was reviewed in the British Journal of General Practice Source ↗
  • Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019 Source ↗
  • Named one of the world's Top 50 Thinkers by Prospect magazine Source ↗
  • Named a TIME100 Health leader Source ↗

What Jonathan Haidt has said

Recent social activity

  • Come to The Atlantic Festival, Sept 17-19, in NYC. The ideas and the food are always excellent. David Brooks and I will discuss what we have learned about human nature, on the Friday. @TheAtlantic Schedule is here: https://t.co/HwppgO625z

    x.com ↗

  • Trust is central to the crisis in higher ed, we must regain it and emerge better. Inquisitive is a beautiful publication from @HdxAcademy, with great essays from great writers. Check it out:

    x.com ↗

Where Jonathan Haidt has been quoted

  1. Wes Streeting asks US expert Jonathan Haidt to address officials on social media ban for under-16stheguardian.com · 4 Oct 2026
  2. Scott Galloway on the masculinity crisis: ‘I worry we are evolving a new breed of asexual, asocial males’theguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
  3. Online child safety campaigners call for US inquiry into Robloxtheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
  4. If you want your kids to thrive this summer, don’t just turn off their phones – open your front door, too | Lenore Skenazytheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
  5. The social media ban sceptic: are we getting it wrong on kids, tech and mental health?theguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026

Related media coverage

Recent UK press coverage of their topics — not necessarily citing them directly.

Contact & links

Organisational contact points only, each taken from a page the organisation publishes itself. No personal or direct contact details are held or shown.

Professors, researchers and think-tank analysts quoted on the strength of their research rather than a clinical role. Citations are counted by an automated scan of UK press coverage and may be incomplete. Roles, biographies and contact details are researched and human-reviewed before they appear here; anything not yet reviewed is simply absent rather than shown unverified. This profile was last updated on 5 Oct 2026. See the methodology for how this page is built, or email contact@bridgeheadcommunications.com to correct anything on it.