Are you feeling overwhelmed by the constant buzz of notifications, the pressure to project a perfect online image, or FOMO? You're not alone. In today's hyper-connected world, anxiety is on the rise, particularly among young people. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt looks at this very zeitgeisty issue in his book The Anxious Generation.
There have been quite prominent displays of the book across many stores.
He starts off by presenting a scenario where youths are asked to be test subjects in a mission to Mars without seeking adult permission. It's a metaphor for how society has largely allowed the tech industry to shape the digital landscape without adequate oversight or consideration of long-term effects, particularly on young people. He then looks at Huizinga's Homo Ludens playful human concept, and how the fear of sexual predators and kidnappers, prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s, led to a culture of overprotection in the physical world, while the online world remained largely unregulated. This imbalance, Haidt argues, has created a generation of young people who are both hyper-vigilant about real-world dangers and vulnerable to the potential harms of the digital realm. He looks at how great harms have been done with technology and social media, especially from 2010 to 2015 where the online avatar world took youth away from their peers in real life and by algorithimically sticky apps that are sometimes nothing more than social Skinner Boxes that give us that dopamine hit when we got a like/ retweet/ follow/ subscriber etc.
Haidt's thesis is that the "great rewiring" of childhood, characterized by a shift from play-based to phone-based experiences, has had a significant impact on adolescent mental health. He cites rising rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm as evidence of this trend. He also points to the increasing prevalence of social media addiction and the negative impact of social comparison on self-esteem
He breaks down his work into 4 streams:
- The Tidal Wave (the rise of mobile phones, the Internet and social media),
- The Backstory (the evolutionary predisposition of play, the social bonds formed and the negative consequences as a result),
- The Great Rewiring (how phone-based play led to an alteration of play and social interactions and norms),
- Collective Action for Heathier Childhoods (how we can take action to support the youth).
He then lays down his 4 points that he believes will help with the decline in mental health and loneliness we see across the world:
1. No smart phones before the age of 14,
2. No social media before 16,
3. Phone free achools, and
4. More unsupervised play and managed risk-taking
Reading the introduction, Haidt covers a lot of ground and the data, statistics and graphs seemed on point so I was up for reading on to see if he stuck the landing. I wrote notes on the gist of each chapter and my thoughts on them afterwards.
Part 1: A Tidal Wave, looks at the confluence of front facing smart phones in 2010, the rise in social media and filter apps that could only be used online and an always online mentality that took over when phones became dominant. More importantly, the rise in anxiety and depression was most stark in pre-teen girls across the Anglophone and Nordic world so it seems that certain demographics are more affected and there was not sufficient data in much else of the world.
Haidt counters the argument that some have raised which is that the constant stream of information and negative stories about climate change, a rise in terrorism, economic gloom has led to a rise in anxiety and depression in Gen Z by stating that Millennials, who would have been more keenly affected by these events as these were anchored moments in their life, did not see a huge rise in anxiety or depression and, after a couple of years, after the 2008 economic crisis, actually evened out. No, something specific is affected our youth and especially young girls and it happened between 2010 and 2015. The graphs bore this out and the data seemed to track with his conclusions.
Part 2: The Backstory- The Decline of Play-Based Childhood, looks at the evolutionary development of humans and the role that rituals, communal activities and face-to-face contact and play has. Haidt discusses how this is essential to mammal learning and how it helps humans in particular to become social beings. However, the lure of the online world has severed this connectedness and replaced it with individualism, low stakes 'brand' creating and self-censoring for like/ retweets etc. That is why there is a huge discrepancy in being more connected than ever but also a huge sense of loneliness that many people feel.
Discovery and defensive mode looks at how evolutionarily, we take risks to see what we can and cannot do-we push our limits as it helps us develop and grow. However, in our risk averse society many people have developed phobias and attachment issues and Haidt believes it is due to fearful parenting and educational and social cohesion falling. Also, the Mean World Syndrome has meant people are less trusting of others and less able to handle risk, conflict and frustration.
He looks at the onset of puberty and the creation of neural pathways; how experiences and immersion during this time can have a profound and long lasting effects. He discusses the various cultural and religious ceremonies which used to encourage a sense of social cohesion and responsibility but in an increasingly secularised world, there is a 'failure to launch’.
Haidt states that children are inherently anti-fragile but parental and societal paranoia and safetyism is causing problems as many children are growing up risk averse and afraid.
Anecdotally, this rings true with what I have seen as a parent and a teacher. As a parent, I know that I often helicopter more than my own parents used to. At the age of 7, my parents would entrust my older brother, who was 3 years older, to look after me when we went outside. We used to go to the park and spend hours there, only coming back for lunch and dinner or when it got dark. With my eldest daughter, who is 9, I sent her to the local shop to get a couple of groceries and she was asked by the shop assistnt where her parents were. In context, the shop is our local one and is only about 200 metres away from our house and there are a couple of sleepy village roads. The stark contrast between my pretty carefree childhood in a pretty rough East London town compared to my daughters experience in a sleepy village is stark and it's all happened so quickly.
Chapter 3: The Great Rewiring- The Rise of the Phone-Based Childhood, has Haidt examining the four main consequences of a phone-based childhood including sleep deprivation, societal deprivation, attention fragmentation and addiction and he says that this is all leading to a global mental health crisis. His examination of opportunity cost, where by doing something you miss out on an opportunity to do something else, is compelling. The number of hours many youths clock up in their phone use often exceeds the hours clocked up doing a full working week. By being screen based Haidt argues that there are other skills, life choices and life chances that the youth are missing out on: they have moved to a consumer based society.
He then discusses how social media companies used behavioural psychology teachings to hack into the youths by providing constant dopamine hits with Skinner Boxes or likes/ retweets/ subscribes etc. The result is many youths are constantly distracted by push notifications and constant update feeds, giving them little time to focus on any tasks for any matter if time.
The research shared shows that amongst teen and tween girls, social media use led to a huge spike in mental health problems compared to other demographics. When looked at further, it was due to low self esteem brought on by filters and unrealistic beauty standards created by some influencers.
Haidt writes about 4 ways that young girls are negatively affected by a phone based childhood:
1) Social comparison and perfectionism (comparing beauty and life standards to others online),
2) Relational Aggression (cyber bullying, shaming etc),
3) Biological and social conditions (young girls are genetically and culturally more predisposed to relationships and a fault in this affects them more profoundly than boys of the same age), and
4) Girls are more subject to predation and harassment (many girls look for as many followers as they can to attain social cache but many of the people following are older men or predatory individuals)
Haidt also looked at the ways that boys are affected by social media but clarified that the data is not as clear. He cites rising NEET figures in the UK and Hakikomori (Japanese shut-ins) and says he thinks it may be a combination of factors:
1) Less social and economic value in strength and muscles (as society has moved away from manual labour and much of the work is automated),
2) The rise of girls in education and work settings,
3) Lack of positive male role-models, and
4) The rise of online gaming and access to online adult content.
Haidt pulls both the threads of the harms caused by phone-based childhoods by looking at 'Spiritual Elevation and Degradation'. He argues that, although he is an atheist, religious or collective worship or activities (such as praying together, going to a concert with a group, watching the same football team and putting in the kit etc) creates a collective effervescence, a bond that unites rather than seperates each person. This collectivism is lost in the online world as people often seek quantity rather than quality in relationships so people lose their deep rooted trust in people or institutions. Emile Durkheim called this the rise of the profane and the lost of the profound; the everyday getting in the way of us considering that we are all part of something bigger than us.
He discusses various theories and beliefs from philosophers and religious scholars who discuss the need to 'still the monkey of the mind' to understand that we are part of a wider world. The awe created, by being in nature, meditating or from religiousity makes us understand that we matter and have meaning but not in the egocentric way that the Internet and social media has done by making us the centre of our own universe.
This chapter rang true for me as I had what my wife called Little Prince Syndrome, I was cooked and looked after at home but I was lucky to have many cultural experiences due to my variety of friends, interests and financial position. I wasn't wealthy but my proximity to London, access to transport and the freedoms conferred on me by my parents meant I lived a pretty relaxed and social life until getting married at the age of 29. I still lived with my parents and probably still would if I hadn't met anyone, why leave when life is easy and good? Additionally, the chance of getting on the property ladder by myself would have been miniscule so why risk what I had? This was a definite failure to launch but it wasn't because my parents hadn't prepared me for life but because the economic crisis, property price bubble, low wages and other key anchor points meant I never was able to look beyond a certain point.
However, once I decided to shake up my life and leave my job, travel around the world for 6 months, get married and work as a teacher in Cambodia for 2 years my life changed forever as I had all these experiences and met new and interesting people- my understanding of the wider world and my presence in it grew as I went to awe inspiring places and met awe inspiring people.
Part 4: Collective Action for Healthier Childhood, looks at a way that all of society, including governments and businesses, can work together to ensure a safe and protected childhood. Haidt gives a lot of reasonable and practical advice and a lot of it is a no-brainier but requires willingness and agency from various parties.
Roughly broken down it means:
Governments- Change the online safety bill to make companies out their apps on the highest security setting and make companies liable for problems.
Families- Collective action and let children grow (by allowing more time for them to play outside and the community deciding not to give phones to their children until an agreed time)
Schools- banning phones from school and allowing more freeplay (Children will not have their phones on them at all during the school day and any phones are put in a phone locker to allow them to fully connect with their peers).
Reading the book, I felt like it made sense and I left it a while before writing this review to apply my TED Talk Method - where you are swept up with the tail and theory at the time but, after walking away and getting some distance and perspective, it makes less and less sense. Here, I felt that Haidt covered a lot of salient points, was supported with evidence and aligned with a lot of the thinking I had with my current experience as a primary school teacher with over 21 years in the front line at the chalkboard. This felt a lot more evidence led rather than the 'Trust me bro, it's all real' of Jonah Lehrer and his Imagine: How Creativity Works. The graphs and data presented the information in compelling ways but, in the words of Churchill, 'There are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics.'
However, a key area I do think Haidt misses is that he doesn’t look at how many young people feel disillusioned by a capitalist system that seems to prioritize profit over people and planet. They are concerned about issues like climate change, social injustice, and economic inequality, and are seeking alternatives that prioritize sustainability, fairness, and community well-being. They are suffering from Empathy Fatigue but they cannot look away as there is a constant stream of bad news so they are finding their tribes online which makes them more brittle in their opinions and less able to listen to the other side. To be honest, this is a whole world issue with the rise of populism but I do think Haidt misses out on the bigger existential social malaise affecting most of the world with the rise of social media.
Overall, I think Haidt is doing great work and I look forward to seeing further works that builds upon his evidence led assumptions.
LINK: Japan: My Journey to the East
LINK- Utopia for Realists- Book Review
LINK- ‘Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire’ LINK: Elden Ring- Videogames As Art
LINK- Toxic: Women, Fame and the Noughties- Book Review (and Some Thoughts)
