Read the full transcript of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s speech at NYU Commencement 2026, May 14, 2026.
Editor’s Note: In his insightful 2026 NYU Commencement address at Yankee Stadium, social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt delivers a powerful message to the graduating class on reclaiming their lives in a hyper-connected world. He challenges the graduates to aggressively guard their attention against a trillion-dollar tech industry designed to exploit it, urging them to put down their screens and take intentional control of their focus. Ultimately, Haidt offers timeless wisdom for adulthood, advising the new graduates to embrace the “anti-fragility” of human nature by choosing to do hard things and building meaningful, in-person connections in the real world.
TRANSCRIPT:
Opening Remarks and Gratitude
JONATHAN HAIDT:
NYU Trustees, Board Chair Chesler, President Mills, and Provost Dopico, I thank you for this honorary degree and these robes. NYU has been my favorite university since 2011, and purple has been my favorite color since I was seven years old.
NYU Class of 2026, what an honor it is to join with my fellow faculty members and your families to celebrate you.
NYU began holding commencement ceremonies here in Yankee Stadium in 2009. Since then, graduates have heard from Prime Ministers, Presidents, Supreme Court Justices, movie stars, and of course, Taylor Swift. So I know what you’re all thinking. Thank God they finally found a social psychologist.
Perhaps that’s why over the past few weeks, as I’ve thought about what I might say to you, I felt grateful, I felt excited, but most of all, I felt a strong sense of responsibility because I am part of NYU. I love this university and I love the students that I’ve had the honor of teaching. That’s why I feel a strong responsibility to do my small part to make this the great and memorable day that all of you and your families deserve.
A Celebration of the NYU Community
Graduates, I see how hard you have worked, and I love how you also throw yourselves into the life of New York City because all of us made the same deal when we chose NYU. We traded in the campus quad for Washington Square and the football stadium for the city that never sleeps.
Here’s something else I know. Most families have stories of struggle and perseverance, many of which began on distant continents, but all of our family stories converge here today in Yankee Stadium with a loved one graduating from New York University, the world’s greatest global university.
So to all of the parents, grandparents, and other friends and relatives in the audience, and to all the teachers or anyone else who helped you reach this day, let us all thank you and applaud you.
Reflections on His Own Commencement
So as I sat down to write this address, I thought back to my own commencement in May of 1985. I remember the mix of emotions I felt as I sat with my fellow graduates in our caps and gowns. On one hand, pride, excitement, gratitude, and love for my friends. On the other, the sadness of knowing that an amazing chapter of my life was ending, and the fear of not knowing what would come next.
Our commencement speaker that day was a former Massachusetts congressman who said that in 20 years, we would not remember anything from his speech. But he was wrong, because I distinctly remember that he said we would not remember anything from his speech. Now his words ring as a reminder to approach my role here with humility.
The Central Message: Treasure Your Attention
So while I am going to share some ideas, some things I’ve learned in my teaching and my research, if there’s just one thing from my address that you remember tomorrow, next week, or 20 years from now, make it this: treasure your attention.
In 2014, when she was nearly 80 years old, the poet Mary Oliver wrote a short poem titled Instructions for Living a Life. It goes like this: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
It sounds simple, but paying attention is in fact one of the most challenging and meaningful things you can do. Because what you pay attention to shapes what you care about, and what you care about shapes what you become. Taking control of your own attention has never been easy, which is why it’s one of the many things this university has tried to prepare you to do.
The Choice of What to Think About
In 2005, the writer David Foster Wallace gave one of this century’s most famous and important commencement addresses at Kenyon College. He said, “The really significant education and thinking that we’re supposed to get in a place like this isn’t really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about.”
He was right, and he seemed to anticipate that two decades later, there are so many powerful people and companies trying to take that choice from you.
They compete with each other to capture your attention. Think about that phrase. It acknowledges that your attention is valuable, but it also reveals that some of the biggest corporations in human history, they’re not trying to earn your attention, they’re not trying to deserve your attention, they’re trying to take it from you.
Consider just one example. Meta is valued at well over a trillion dollars, even though few of us have given it any money. How is that possible? Because it invented a business model that extracts attention from nearly half of all human beings on the planet, and it sells it to advertisers. Other industries followed. Video games, dating, gambling, even investing has been gamified to optimize the time we all spend staring and swiping.
We’ve all had the experience of picking up our phone, maybe for a good reason, only to find ourselves an hour later scrolling mindlessly. That’s not an accident.
That’s our phones and apps doing what they were designed to do.
How to Resist and Reclaim Your Attention
So let me tell you what I have learned from my research and my teaching about how to resist and how to reclaim your attention. I’ve taught a course at Stern now for 12 years called Flourishing. On day one of the course, I asked students to do something simple. Turn off nearly all of the notifications on your phone.
Do you get an alert every time an email comes in? A lot of students do. So turn that off. Do you get breaking news alerts? Turn those off. A week later, I asked them, did you miss anything really important? And the answer is almost always no. Then I asked, did you gain anything important? And the answer is almost always yes.
Students are amazed how much better life feels when they remove a hundred interruptions from each day, when they check things when they choose to, rather than giving a company the right to interrupt them whenever it wants.
In the third week of my Flourishing course, I asked my students to take part in an exercise that they think is going to be a lot harder. I asked them to delete social media apps from their phones just for one week. I don’t ask them to stop using social media entirely. Many of them continue to use it through a web browser. But adding that little bit of friction for one week by having to log in on a web browser rather than just pulling out your phone puts us back in charge of deciding where our attention goes.
By the end of the week, most students are surprised how easy it was. More than that, they’re surprised by how much freer they feel. They get back precious hours each day and a feeling of agency over how to spend that time.
So treasure your attention more than the people who want to take it from you. Never forget what it’s worth. For Meta, it’s more than a trillion dollars. For you and your life, it’s priceless.
Do Hard Things
All right. Thank you. So once you’re in control of your attention, you can start to ask yourself one of life’s most exciting questions, which is, what do I want to do? Of course, the answer to this question is going to be different for each of you. But looked at in another way, the answer may be the same for all of you. What should you do? You should do hard things.
This is among the most universal pieces of advice from our ancestors. In the words of two great philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche and Kelly Clarkson, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
The psychological foundation of this great truth is that humans and especially young people are not fragile. They are anti-fragile, to use a term coined by NYU professor Nassim Taleb. Fragile things break when they get knocked over or challenged. So we need to protect them vigilantly. But anti-fragile things grow stronger, so we need to expose them to challenge diligently.
So how should you live these next postgraduate years, these years of transition? By repeatedly turning your attention toward doing hard things.
Seize the Opportunity
JONATHAN HAIDT: Throw yourself into your next job or academic program or whatever your next adventure is. Take chances. Say yes to anything that will expand your capabilities. And I’m not just talking about your career. Devote your precious attention to taking chances in relationships too. You’ve heard it said that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. That line becomes even more resonant once you understand that your heart is anti-fragile too.
The Power of Real-World Connection
And this brings me to my final point, because along with the question, what should I turn my attention toward, comes a related question, whom should I spend my attention on? And once again, the answer is going to be different for each of you, but looked at in a certain way, it may be the same for all of you. You should spend a lot of your attention on real people in the real world.
During your time at NYU, in-person connection was built into the architecture of your lives. You ran into friends constantly. Or maybe someone texted pizza, and 10 minutes later, you were having pizza. These shared experiences are easily launched in college. That’s part of what makes this place so special.
But today, one of the most common experiences of adulthood, especially in ambitious cities among high-achieving people, is a strange kind of loneliness. You can be messaging people all day. You can see everyone’s lives unfold in real time. And yet despite all this so-called connection, you may find yourself feeling increasingly alone.
Friendship now requires much more intentionality than it once did. So my advice, as you think about what does and doesn’t deserve your attention, is reach out to others, even when it feels awkward. Call someone you love just to say hi. Invite someone to dinner and say yes when someone invites you. Be the one who makes things happen in the real world, and others will be grateful to you.
Think about your most memorable moments from your time at NYU. I’m willing to bet that almost none of them happened on a screen. Most of them probably happened while you were spending time with other people who made you laugh or helped you grow. Keep making those moments happen.
Pay Attention. Be Astonished. Tell About It.
And I’m so excited to say that in just a few minutes, Jacob Collier will give us all such a collective moment, one that you’ll remember long after you forget what I have said.
And so, NYU Class of 2026, I want to end where I began with Mary Oliver’s instructions for living a life. “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
I cannot predict what your future will hold, but I can tell you this. At this point in your life, with a degree from NYU, you have opportunities that few people in history could ever have dreamed of. You have the opportunity to become the best, fullest, and truest version of yourself.
Here’s something else I can tell you. The world needs you to seize that opportunity with everything you’ve got. It won’t be easy. You’ll face the universal challenges encountered by all the generations who came before you, and you’ll face the unique challenges that have arisen for your generation. But if you treasure your attention and then use it to do hard things in real life with other people, then, and trust me on this as a social psychologist, your life is going to be amazing. And the world is going to be a far better place because you’re in it.
Congratulations, NYU Class of 2026. May you all flourish.
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