I think the possibility that outreach to younger age groups[1] might be net negative is relatively neglected. That said, the two possible reasons suggested here didn’t strike me as particularly conclusive.
The main reasons why I’m somewhat wary of outreach to younger ages (though there are certainly many considerations on both sides):
It seems quite plausible that people are less apt to adopt EA at younger ages because their thinking is ‘less developed’ in some relevant way that seems associated with interest in EA.
I think something related to but distinct from your factor (2) could also be an influence here, namely reaching out to people close to the time when they are making relevant decisions might be more effective at engaging people.
It also seems possible (though far from certain) that the counterfactual for many people engaged by outreach to younger age groups, is that they could have been reached by outreach targeted at a later date, i.e. many people we reach as high schoolers could simply have been reached once they were at university.
These questions seem very uncertain, but also empirically tractable, so it’s a shame that more hasn’t been done to try to address them. For example, it seems relatively straightforward to compare the success rates of outreach targeting different ages.
We previously did a little work to look at the relationship between the age when people first got involved in EA and their level of engagement. Prima facie, younger age of involvement seemed associated with higher engagement, though there’s a relative dearth of people who joined EA at younger ages, making the estimates uncertain (when comparing <20s to early 20s, for example), and we’d need to spend more time on it to disentangle other possible confounds.
Or it might be that ‘life stages’ are the relevant factor rather than age per se, i.e. a younger person who’s already an undergrad might have similar outcomes when exposed to EA as a typical-age undergrad, whereas reaching out to people while in high school (regardless of age) might be associated with negative outcomes.
I think the possibility that outreach to younger age groups[1] might be net negative is relatively neglected. That said, the two possible reasons suggested here didn’t strike me as particularly conclusive.
The main reasons why I’m somewhat wary of outreach to younger ages (though there are certainly many considerations on both sides):
It seems quite plausible that people are less apt to adopt EA at younger ages because their thinking is ‘less developed’ in some relevant way that seems associated with interest in EA.
I think something related to but distinct from your factor (2) could also be an influence here, namely reaching out to people close to the time when they are making relevant decisions might be more effective at engaging people.
It also seems possible (though far from certain) that the counterfactual for many people engaged by outreach to younger age groups, is that they could have been reached by outreach targeted at a later date, i.e. many people we reach as high schoolers could simply have been reached once they were at university.
These questions seem very uncertain, but also empirically tractable, so it’s a shame that more hasn’t been done to try to address them. For example, it seems relatively straightforward to compare the success rates of outreach targeting different ages.
We previously did a little work to look at the relationship between the age when people first got involved in EA and their level of engagement. Prima facie, younger age of involvement seemed associated with higher engagement, though there’s a relative dearth of people who joined EA at younger ages, making the estimates uncertain (when comparing <20s to early 20s, for example), and we’d need to spend more time on it to disentangle other possible confounds.
Or it might be that ‘life stages’ are the relevant factor rather than age per se, i.e. a younger person who’s already an undergrad might have similar outcomes when exposed to EA as a typical-age undergrad, whereas reaching out to people while in high school (regardless of age) might be associated with negative outcomes.