The Good Fight Christine Rosen on the Harms of the Digital Age
18 snips
Aug 9, 2025 
Christine Rosen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and columnist for Commentary magazine, joins Yascha Mounk to tackle the unsettling impacts of the digital age. They discuss the downsides of online dating and the heightened anxiety surrounding face-to-face interactions. Rosen highlights how constant online presence complicates relationship development and diminishes meaningful connections. They also explore the societal ramifications of public shaming and the challenge of forming authentic identities in a world dominated by digital surveillance.
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Followers Trump Constituents
- Politicians increasingly answer followers rather than constituents because online followings reward attention.
- Christine Rosen warns this shifts incentives from governance to signaling and harms democratic accountability.
Screens Erode Social Skill Practice
- Replacing face-to-face practice with mediated interaction robs younger generations of skills like reading facial cues.
- Rosen notes humans choose easier mediated paths, so in-person social skills now require deliberate practice.
Collective Life Has Become Impoverished
- Smartphones package many benefits but erase place-and-time boundaries that used to structure attention and manners.
- Christine Rosen argues this improves private access but impoverishes collective, public experiences.