When social psychologist Jonathan Haidt published The Anxious Generation in March 2024, his core proposal—that children should be kept off social media until at least age 16, with tech companies bearing the burden of enforcement—was treated by many as aspirational, even quixotic. The tech industry dismissed it. Libertarian critics called it paternalistic overreach. Skeptics questioned the evidence base.

That was then.

In barely two years, Haidt’s “radical” idea has become something close to a global consensus—a textbook example of what political scientists call the “Overton Window”—one that’s shifted at extraordinary........

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