Thoughts On The Anxious Generation

I recently finished reading a book by Jonathan Haidt, “The Anxious Generation.” It’s a must-read for many, especially those who interact with kids on some level. Or if you’ve ever struggled with smartphone addiction to some degree, you owe it to yourself to read this book. Teachers, parents, and people who sense screen-time is too much will benefit from reading Haidt’s research and well presented findings. He names the cause of anxious Gen Z as The Great Rewiring of Childhood.

Basically, through the years, society has increasingly over-protected kids in the offline world and under-protected kids in the online world. Society went from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood. Haidt unpacks all that with lots of charts and clear examples. It’s both compelling and startling.

Haidt has a substantial weight of evidence for this large scale, epidemic-sized mental health crisis among youth. It’s convincing information. Thankfully, Haidt has several steps or calls to action that many people can take to quickly start solving the dilemma. The author also addresses many related concerns or doubts, such as all this just being alarmist or moral panic.

To be clear, adolescent kids going through puberty while also being addicted to psychologically manipulative social media and video games, which are always available at a moment’s notice in their pocket, is the biggest problem.

Not all screen-time is bad, of course, but most adults know how distracting smartphones are. How much more attention-grabbing and hard-to-resist is it for young kids with still-developing brains and limited self-control? A LOT harder. And the adverse effects are more pronounced. Haidt, throughout his book, proves it.

So put the phone down and read this book. You can even do like I did and read it on a screen (Kindle, in my case). Some screen-time is good. Media moderation for the win.