Hard Fork – "Jonathan Haidt Strikes Again + What You Vibecoded + An Update on the Forkiverse"

The New York Times, January 16, 2026
Hosts: Kevin Roose and Casey Newton
Special Guests: Jonathan Haidt, PJ Vogt

Episode Overview

This episode is packed with three main stories:

1. A deep dive with Jonathan Haidt into his latest research on social media's impact on youth mental health, including the science of causality, real-world implications, and the policy debate around phone and social media bans for teens.
2. A celebration of listener "vibecoding" projects made possible by new AI coding tools like Claude Code—revealing a wave of non-coders building useful and delightful software for personal and business needs.
3. An update on the "Forkiverse," the podcast’s experimental Fediverse community, featuring lessons learned on community moderation, internet culture, and a bit of Russian misinformation intrigue.

Throughout, the episode takes a tone of urgent concern (for youth and tech), delight (at emerging generative AI capabilities), and wry humor about the realities of digital life and running a community.

1. Jonathan Haidt Returns: Social Media's Impact on Kids

Main Theme

Haidt revisits the show with fresh data and insights after the widespread impact of his book The Anxious Generation. The discussion sharpens the case that social media is not just correlated but causally linked to a range of harms for youth, and debates the societal and policy paths forward.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Evidence for Causality

• Haidt argues the debate has shifted: "There are tons and tons of evidence of causation. And Meta did some of the best studies to show it." (05:47)
  • Highlights new experimental studies (Meta’s own included) and reports from internal lawsuits, collated at a new website, metasinternalresearch.org
• Causality is not just correlation; randomized assignment studies show that getting off social media for at least a week reduces depression.
• Evidence from multiple lines: what kids, parents, teachers report; experimentation; internal company data.

Mechanisms of Harm

• The environment is "dangerous," not any one pathway:
  • High rates of sexual harassment (~15% of teens weekly)
  • Bullying, exposure to violence, hardcore porn
  • Sextortion (most egregious): "Their lives are ruined and some of them commit suicide." (07:11)
  • For boys: Hooked by "porn, gambling, vaping, sports betting, even crypto investing is gamified..."
• Social comparison remains a factor, especially for girls (08:54), but the harms are broader.

Decoupling the Science Debate

• Haidt distinguishes between:
  • Historical population question: Did social media cause landmark rises in mental health disorders after 2012? Hard to prove.
  • Product safety question: Is social media itself, as used today, harming kids? The answer is YES based on convergent evidence. (10:14)

Attribution of Blame and the Role of Collective Traps

• Haidt argues parents and teachers shouldn’t be blamed for giving in to smartphone/social media pressures:
  • "My rule as a social psychologist: if one person does something really bad, that might be a bad person, if everybody... is doing something bad, that's guaranteed to be a bad situation." (12:23)
  • The real blame: Tech companies who engineered addictive, harmful products without adequate protections.

Haidt’s Turn to Advocacy

• The reaction to his book: worldwide "mothers stood up," legislators called; he’s become a leading activist for phone-free schools and later social media access. (13:49)
• On meeting with French President Macron: "Everywhere I go I'm pushing on open doors because everyone who's a parent has seen it." (15:32)

Lawsuits as a Regulatory Tool

• Plaintiffs’ lawyers now bring class actions for harms; Haidt sees this as "the only way that we have... these lawyers who are taking these cases. Yeah, they're heroes." (18:51)

Adult Harms and the Universality of the Issue

• The problem is not just for kids: "I'm overwhelmed. I can't read a book anymore." (19:45)
• But Haidt is wary of legislating for adults, focusing on children for policy change.

Policy Experiments: Australia’s Social Media Ban for Under-16s

• Australia just forced Meta to delete 550,000 teen accounts.
  • Haidt predicts improvement if the bill is effective (~20% or fewer teens online). Data from phone-free schools is very promising. (20:44)
  • If after 5 years there’s no mental health improvement, he’d reconsider, but would also look at other critical harms (sextortion, drugs). (22:26)

Critics and the Case for Social Media Benefits

• Some parents see benefits (e.g., a 13-year-old learning gymnastics and cooking via Instagram), but Haidt argues these don’t require algorithm-driven social feeds. "If you take away social media from kids, I don't see any loss." (24:51)

Looking Ahead: The AI Threat

• Kevin asks if Haidt is "fighting the last war," given teens’ growing use of AI companions ("boys...never going to reproduce"). Haidt: "If we can't win on social media, then just give up on AI.” (26:40)

Haidt’s Reflections on Public Life

• The burden of activism versus scholarship: "I have had a feeling of efficacy, a feeling that...I’ve been gifted the chance to actually make a difference in the world." (28:08)
• Jokes about needing ChatGPT to read books, as even he struggles to focus now.

Notable Quotes

• "The evidence for causality is now overwhelming. People have to stop saying, oh, it's just correlational." – Jonathan Haidt (05:47)
• "It's the whole goddamn environment... all the fish hooks dangled in front of boys." – Jonathan Haidt (09:05)
• "If everybody in a situation is doing something bad, that's guaranteed to be a bad situation." – Jonathan Haidt (12:23)
• "I don't blame the parents, I don't blame the teachers, I blame the companies." – Jonathan Haidt (13:19)
• "If we can't win on social media, then just give up on AI. Just say it's game over. Our kids are gone..." – Jonathan Haidt (26:46)
• "No one has read a book since 2021 and they're just lying about it." – Casey Newton (29:48)

Important Timestamps

• [05:02] – Start of interview with Jonathan Haidt
• [05:47] – Causality v. correlation
• [07:11] – How social media harms kids (mechanisms)
• [10:14] – The two core questions: history v. product safety
• [12:23] – Attribution of blame and collective action traps
• [15:32] – Meeting Macron; international legislative momentum
• [18:51] – The rise of lawsuits against social media companies
• [20:44] – Predictions for Australia’s social media ban
• [24:51] – Debate over possible benefits to kids
• [26:40] – The coming threat of AI companions
• [28:08] – Haidt on his new public role

2. What You Vibecoded: AI-Created Projects by Listeners

Main Theme

Exploring the "Claude Code moment": With new AI-powered code generation tools, non-programmers are creating web apps, business tools, and delightful one-offs. Listeners share what they've built in the past week after seeing the hosts do it.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Claude Code's "ChatGPT Moment"

• Kevin: "It seems to be having kind of a ChatGPT moment." (32:48)
• Casey: "Millions realized you can ask questions and get pretty good answers... The Claude Code moment, I feel like, is the next evolution where people are saying, 'I can now build something that is useful to me, even though I don't really know what I'm doing.'" (33:58)
• Both hosts are excited that non-coders can quickly create full-featured apps.

Listener Project Highlights

• Personal/Portfolio Websites
  • Gina: Redesigned her site with animations and a MySpace Easter egg (39:27)
• Custom Book Recommendation Engine
  • Sarah: Built a book tracker & recommends titles based on mood at sarahsbooks.com (40:29)
• Family Projects
  • David: Turned the annual Christmas letter into an interactive 80s-style text adventure (41:07)
  • Simon: Created a chore tracker for 70 kitchen handle replacements, with a leaderboard for his kids (44:03)
• Business Tools
  • Joe: Welder who built an internal assistant for job tracking, quoting, PDF management, and CNC workflow ("I built my own business infrastructure from scratch with an AI pair programmer, despite having zero formal training and a high school education.” (42:40))
  • Faye: Wallpaper company owner built calculator and visualization tools for customer quotes—no previous coding experience, saves on expensive third-party software (43:02)

The Change in Empowerment and Software Production

• Listeners and hosts feel empowered to "vibecode" quick solutions for daily problems, even with no tech background.
• Casey: "Every time I have an idea and I could just make it, it just gives me the confidence to go out and build like three or four new things." (48:38)
• Kevin: Realizes the pain of user feature requests as a new (accidental) software vendor (47:41)

Meta-Reflection: The Significance of AI Coding Tools

• The hosts see this as "anti-slop": a countertrend to mass-generated, impersonal AI content. Instead, AI can empower real creative agency and personal utility. (46:46)

Disclosures

• Casey: Boyfriend works at Anthropic (Claude creator)
• Kevin: NYT suing OpenAI/Microsoft/Perplexity over copyright

Notable Quotes

• "This is to me, I built my own business infrastructure from scratch with an AI pair programmer, despite having zero formal training and a high school education. Totally pretty cool." – Listener Joe (42:40)
• "There's no better way right now, in 2026, to get a handle on what the frontier of AI progress looks like than to come up with a project, no matter how silly or trivial, give it to one of these AI coding agents and watch what it does." – Kevin Roose (45:39)

Important Timestamps

• [32:48] – Claude Code’s arrival
• [39:27] – Listener websites
• [40:29] – Book recommendation site
• [41:07] – Christmas letter adventure
• [42:40] – Business infrastructure from scratch
• [44:03] – Handle replacement app
• [46:46] – Reflection on where AI is heading

3. The Forkiverse: Building, Moderating, and Surviving a Micro Community

Main Theme

Following the launch of the "Forkiverse," a bespoke community on the decentralized Fediverse, hosts and collaborator PJ Vogt reflect on what it's actually like to run an online community—from joyful connections to instant need for content moderation, Russian misinformation, and the precarity of pop-up digital spaces.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Birth and Culture of the Forkiverse

• Over 4,000 users in under a week—double the anticipated interest.
• Community built around a shared podcast—early prompts included “post where you’re listening.”
  • "It feels like a bunch of strangers, politely friendly... I've really liked it." – PJ Vogt (55:06)

User Engagement and Community Vibes

• Real sense of community among friendly, podcast-loving listeners; hosts share how the "buoyancy" and neighborliness contrast with other social platforms (politics-dominated BlueSky, the chaos of Threads).
• "I feel freer to just share, like, silly little jokes that might not feel welcome in some of the other places online." – Casey Newton (64:12)
• Social lubricant: creative prompts, non-serious fun.

The Reality of Content Moderation

• Instant issues upon open registration: spam, harassment (“Don Juan” spammer messaging only women), racism (multiple slurs), pro-Russia propaganda campaigns (62:05)
• "I was proud. All I did was block them from my account... But I, I felt the, the little whisper of the demon that has driven Elon Musk into planets unknown." – PJ Vogt (61:30)
• Hosts enjoy the bluntness of moderation in their “clubhouse”: "If I don't like the vibe of your post and it bothered somebody else, like by default you are just going to be gone and there are not going to be appeals." – Casey Newton (60:05)

External Pressures and Fediverse Politics

• Long-time Fedi users email to criticize sustainability/exit plan—leading Casey to defend the light-hearted, experimental nature of the project.
• "Do you know what's really easy to do? Create a new fricking account on the Fediverse. Worst case scenario is really not that bad." (67:51)

Technical and Policy Challenges

• Moderation relies on user reports; server is federated, so checking all posts is impossible.
• Russian disinformation effort ("Portal Combat") flagged by Fediverse Trust and Safety, but not yet visible to mods (62:33)
• Server capacity originally expected to max out at 2k, now 4k; community responds, helpfully, by uploading only low-res photos to save bandwidth (73:10)

On Who Should Join: No Kids Allowed!

• Forkiverse set at 18+; honor system only. (68:10)
• Jokingly: "If you don't have lower back pain when you wake up in the morning, stay the hell off the forkaverse." (69:00)

What Next?

• Hosts debate how to sustain community fun and growth (adding more podcasts?), how to prevent letting users down, and the inevitability of winding down an experiment.
• "I do not want people entrusting any part of their daily fulfillment and routine to our little stupid hobby project..." – Kevin Roose (74:05)
• On the bar for success: "It is just a website that I'm surprised to find how much I'm enjoying checking, which I honestly did not think we would clear that bar." – PJ Vogt (63:54)

Notable Quotes

• "We are going to invariably let these people down... And I just worry that somebody somewhere is going to be let down or hurt because of something that we have done or more likely failed to do." – Kevin Roose (74:05)
• "This absolutely is an experiment. Things could go wrong." – Casey Newton (74:52)
• "I want more growth... even if it just means a public community board for three podcasts." – PJ Vogt (71:24)

Important Timestamps

• [52:15] – Forkiverse segment starts
• [55:06] – Community culture observations
• [56:22] – The grind of content moderation
• [62:05] – Russian misinformation flagged
• [68:10] – Adults only policy
• [71:24] – What happens next for the Forkiverse
• [74:05] – On responsibility and experimentality

Memorable and Humorous Moments

• Kevin: "No one has read a book since 2021 and they're just lying about it." (29:48)
• Debating fake Romantasy books: "If I ever wrote like a social science treatise... I'd try to put it in a world where like, dark fairies were having sex with each other." – Casey (29:52)
• On moderation: "Do you feel like you became drunk with authority banning these users with no process for appeals?" – Kevin (59:52)
• Community advice: "If you don't have lower back pain when you wake up in the morning, stay the hell off the forkaverse." – Casey (69:00)

Final Thoughts

The episode delivers a fast-moving conversation on the digital present:

• A culture-shifting debate on how social media and technology are fundamentally altering mental health and childhood
• A democratization of software creation thanks to AI-driven code agents
• A microcosm of online community stewardship—from joyful creation to instant necessity for moderation and defense against global disinfo ops

Through it all, Roose, Newton, and their guests maintain a sharp, self-aware, and often hilarious lens on what it means to live, create, and connect online in 2026.

For Deep Dives

• [05:02–31:00] – Jonathan Haidt interview (youth mental health, causality, policy, activism, AI threat)
• [32:48–49:52] – Claude Code/vibecoding revolution: listener stories
• [52:15–76:30] – Forkiverse: building, community, moderation, safety, and questions for the future

For questions, experiments, or just to share your own #vibecode creations, the hosts encourage outreach at hardfork@nytimes.com or in the (currently) ever-pleasant Forkiverse.