The ‘Anxious Generation’ – Part 1
A month ago I called my brother-in-law, known to all the family as Uncle Jim, to ask a favor. He readily said yes to the favor, then said he had one for me. He wanted me to read “The Anxious Generation,” the book about the first generation to go through adolescence with smartphones.
“It’s data-driven,” he said. “It’s not opinion.” Uncle Jim is a medical doctor. Data, or evidence, is fundamental to his thinking. He is also a grandfather, and that fact has led him to push this book. Jim has grandchildren under the age of 10. He wants the problems addressed by the book to be recognized and to be on the path of correction before his grandchildren are teenagers.
The author, Jonathan Haidt, psychologist and professor, intended to write a book about the damage that social media does to democracy, but while exploring the research he changed his mind. “I realized that the adolescent mental health story was so much bigger than I had thought. It wasn’t just an American story, it was a story playing out across many Western nations. It wasn’t just about girls, it was about boys, too. And it wasn’t just about social media. It was about the radical transformation of childhood into something inhuman: a phone-based existence.”
He pivoted and, with much support from others who saw the problems, wrote “The Anxious Generation” (2024, Penguin Press, 367 pp).
Many American health professionals began to notice a sudden increase in anxiety and depression in preteens and teens, especially girls, in the early 2010s. The data supported the observations. Increases in anxiety and depression were found in both self-reports and rates of emergency room visits. The later COVID lockdowns exacerbated the problems, but “the great majority of the rise was in place” beforehand.
Early studies showed a strong correlation with expanding social media use. Later studies, using control groups, showed that heavy use of social media can actually cause anxiety and depression in girls, with the greatest harm being to girls from ages 11 to 13.
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The smartphone was introduced in 2007. It was basically a tool. Then began the race to claim as much of a user’s attention as possible. With competition over apps, with specific content being pushed to individuals, the “like” and “retweet” buttons, the front-facing camera allowing easy self-portraits, the increasing speeds which offered more and more rapid delivery, the hooks were in place. Those entering puberty, the age to take the journey from childhood to adulthood, were the most vulnerable. “Many tech executives,” says Haidt, choose schools for their children “where screen use is prohibited.”
Though humans in general are “comparison machines,” writes Haidt, quoting one of his colleagues, adolescents are extremely sensitive to comparison. They are, in general, less secure socially and more susceptible to peer pressure. We all know this. Is it always healthy for them to spend lots of time posting pictures of their lives, searching for “likes”? Is it always healthy for girls to spend hours looking at unlimited pictures of impossibly thin or beautiful young women, some of whose photos have been altered?
Most parents that Haidt talks to are concerned about phone use. For some, it’s a matter of too-often conflict at home over rules. Most parents worry that phone use is “unnatural.” They wonder if their child is missing something important by spending so much time on the phone. Studies by social psychologists support these concerns. We humans are meant to interact, in the present moment, with real, physical people. Not all the time, obviously, but often. In addition to social deprivation, Haidt discusses attention fragmentation. His own college and graduate students are notified multiple times an hour by their phones for news items or emails or messages. And then there are the problems of sleep deprivation and actual addiction.
There are specific problems with heavy social media use beyond the time involved. “Children did not evolve to handle the virality, anonymity, instability and potential for large-scale public shaming of the virtual world. Even adults have trouble with it.”
When Haidt says that we should be delaying smartphone and social media use in children, parents usually agree, but think that it is too late. It’s not too late, insists the author. When the “Titanic” sunk, he says, it’s two sister ships were taken to dry dock and reworked.
We now know the harmful effects of childhood phone use, and we can act by working together. The parent group Wait Until 8th is highlighted. Parents signs a pledge to delay giving their child a smartphone, but the pledge is not considered binding until 10 families in each grade sign, giving a child some peer support. (Haidt would prefer Wait Until 9th, which is what the data supports.) Schools can require that phones be locked up. Laws can be passed that require age verification for social media use. Parents can dictate that there be no screens in bedrooms, or at least after bedtime.
Some of the most encouraging news comes from Haidt’s experience with his own students and the young audiences he speaks with. They are primarily from Gen Z, the kids who were born after 1995, the kids who first went through puberty with smartphones, the ones he calls the Anxious Generation. These kids “are not in denial.” Most want to be healthier, and “are open to new ways of interacting.” They also want to change the world. “In the last year or so, I’ve been hearing about an increasing number of young people who are turning their attention to the ways the tech industry exploits them.” They will find new solutions, Haidt believes.
In the meantime, Haidt is convinced about several reforms that he considers crucial. Two of them are:
• No smartphones before high school.
• No social media before 16.
In Part ll in next week’s SMN, we will look what is happening with boys, and hear the story of the happy results from a school experiment in neighboring South Carolina.
(Anne Bevilacqua is a book lover who lives in Haywood County. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
