The Anxious Generation

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

First edition cover
Author	Jonathan Haidt
Cover artist	Dave Cicirelli
Language	English
Publisher	Penguin Press
Publication date	March 26, 2024
Publication place	New York
Media type	Print (hardcover), e-book, audiobook
Pages	400
ISBN	978-0-593-65503-0 (First edition hardcover)
Dewey Decimal	305.230973
LC Class	HQ792.U5 H23 2024

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness is a 2024 book by Jonathan Haidt which argues that the spread of smartphones, social media and overprotective parenting have led to a "rewiring" of childhood and a rise in mental illness.

Haidt argues that the combination of the decline of play-based childhoods, exacerbated by what he describes as overprotective parents, and increasing smartphone use has been harmful to children since the late 2000s. In an interview during the WSJ's Future of Everything Festival, he advocates banning smartphones in schools, arguing for flip-phones with limited features instead.

Summary

Part 1 — A Tidal Wave

Haidt examines statistics for those under 18 on a number of mental health criteria, including mental health diagnoses such as anxiety disorders and major depression, self-harm episodes, and suicide rates. For each, there was a sudden uptick around 2010 when smartphones became widely available. Haidt notes that the same effects were greatly reduced for those 30 or older and were seen worldwide in other developed countries. He also rules out the 2007–2008 financial crisis as a cause given that similar financial crises of the past did not produce such an uptick.

Part 2 — The Backstory: The Decline in Play-Based Childhood

Drawing inspiration from the book Antifragile, Haidt argues that children are "antifragile" and require some level of adversity and challenge early in life in order to handle difficult situations as adults. Without that experience, adults are prone to anxiety, depression, and other maladies due to an inability to cope. Historically, childhood adversity and challenge has occurred through play, in which children took risks, tested their limits, and learned to cope with failure.

Building on research from his coauthored book The Coddling of the American Mind, Haidt argues that risk-taking has been discouraged by "safetyism" where parents, educators, and other caregivers are overprotective and have minimized the physical and mental risks that children take. An example is playground equipment in recent decades being much less likely to allow behavior that results in cuts and bruises, but also that is not stimulating or challenging for older children, and don't allow them to test their limits.

Furthermore, the amount of play that children experience daily has been reduced for the last several decades due to schools reducing the amount of recess in favor of more time studying, as well as urban design favoring automobiles over pedestrian traffic limiting children's abilities to travel to friends' houses or public spaces such as parks.

These two things encourage children to spend time on solitary indoor activities, such as watching TV or using a computer. With few or no viable alternatives for play or ability to spend time in person with friends, children since the advent of smartphones are more likely to spend large amounts of time using them, especially through social media.

Part 3 — The Great Rewiring: The Rise of the Phone-based Childhood

Four foundational harms of social media are named: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction.

Citing information from the 2021 Facebook leak, Haidt notes that Facebook (now Meta) was aware of the harm Facebook and Instagram has on teenagers, especially girls. Furthermore, the leaks showed the company was researching ways to further encourage teenagers' continued use of their products.

Among the harms of social media, Haidt shows statistics that in the decade following the introduction of smartphones, the number of minutes spent daily with friends steeply declined since 2010, the number of students getting less than 7 hours of sleep has increased, and the number of teens reporting they have a few close friends has decreased. These changes did not occur for those older than 30 and affected girls more than boys.

The concept of social media leading to "spiritual degradation" is explored. While an atheist himself, Haidt notes how spiritual practices include common human experiences, such as collective rituals, being in the same location as others ("embodiment"), silence, transcending oneself, being slow to anger and quick to forgive, and finding awe in nature. All of these are largely lacking in social media, and thus children are lacking an essential part of human experience. Haidt links the concept of anomie to surveys showing teens being less satisfied with their life.

Part 4 — Collective Action for a Healthier Childhood

Haidt notes that collective action is required, since many parents feel pressured to give their children smart phones in order to not be left out. He provides a number of proposed solutions for governments, tech companies, schools, and parents.

Government solutions include adopting provisions like the British Children's Code to other countries and increasing the ages protected by the American COPPA from under 13 to under 16. Haidt also calls for governments to enforce laws that prohibit companies from allowing accounts to be opened by children under a certain age.

Tech company solutions include having smartphone platforms such as iOS and Android provide additional parental controls limiting usage and access. He proposes having smartphones with child restrictions on them be able to preemptively notify social media sites that the user is not old enough to create an account.

School solutions include banning phone use during school time. Haidt also calls for an increase in recess time and encouraging more risky play as was possible in the past, which would provide children alternatives for screen time and social media while also building resiliency and making them "antifragile."

Parent solutions include building resiliency by being less overprotective, encouraging playtime, allowing time away from parental supervision, and encouraging children to accomplish tasks on their own. Haidt suggests a staggered age-based technology option, such as giving children "dumb phones" at younger ages and only providing more feature-capable phones when they are older. To avoid children feeling left out, Haidt encourages parents to collectively agree to not give their children smartphones until a certain age, giving the "Wait Until 8th" pledge as an example.

Reception

As of September 2024, the book has spent 23 consecutive weeks on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list. It topped the list four times.

The book received endorsements from Oprah Winfrey and Jessica Seinfeld. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders sent a copy of the book to the governor of each U.S. state and territory, urging them "to come together to limit social media and screen use for kids and encourage outdoor play to combat America's mental health crisis."

Academic reviews

Candice Odgers, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, and Duke University, published a review of the book in Nature arguing that most empirical evidence on social medial and mental health did not find a large or consistently negative effect and suggesting that the correlation of rising social media use and mental health problems might reflect reverse causation. Odgers also accused Haidt of fear-mongering and warned that "rising hysteria could distract us from tackling the real causes" of youth mental health struggles.

Haidt responded to Odgers' criticism, arguing that he and his co-researcher, Zach Rausch, have compiled numerous experimental studies, most of which support his claims. Haidt also emphasised that, while there are many correlational studies, his research also includes evidence for causality. He rejected Odgers' suggestion that the 2008 financial crisis and other societal issues are the primary causes of the mental health crisis, noting that its timing and international scope point more directly to the rise of smartphones and social media.

Journalistic reception

In the New York Times, David Wallace-Wells acknowledged Haidt's influence in shaping the narrative on social and mental health. However, he emphasized that teenage mental health trends vary between countries and need to be interpreted cautiously. He specifically took issue with Haidt's interpretation of increases in recorded emergency room visits for self-harm, because changes to the guidelines for mental health screenings (in 2011) and recording the intentionality of injury (in 2015) can also explain the increase. He also noted that life satisfaction has not deteriorated. Wallace-Wells cited researchers like Amy Orben and Andrew Przybylski, who argue that the evidence connecting smartphones to declining well-being is weak and contested. Wallace-Wells concludes that while smartphones may contribute to emotional distress for some teenagers, attributing the rise in depression and anxiety solely to technology oversimplifies a much more nuanced issue.

Writing for The Guardian, Sophie McBain praised the book, describing it as "an urgent and persuasive warning" about the danger of phone-based childhoods. However, she questioned Haidt's downplaying of global issues, like climate change and political instability, and their media coverage as contributing factors to youth anxiety. McBain also found Haidt's theory of overprotective parenting to be "much less substantiated" compared to his research on smartphones.

Helen Rumbelow of The Times gave the book a positive review, while acknowledging criticism it faced from some academics for relying "heavily" on correlation studies.

Political reception

News agency Reuters said the book served as the catalyst for Australia's Online Safety Amendment, a proposed law which aims to restrict the use of social media by minors under the age of 16.

See also

• Youth mental health crisis
• Digital media use and mental health