“What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish?” Luke 11:11
Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation, is frightening. For any of us who are parents, we cannot imagine purposely harming our children. It seems unthinkable. We protect our children from all sorts of harms—physical harms, germs, mean people, strangers. We do this out of a biological instinct to protect, but also because we recognize that our children are not equipped to protect themselves. As Haidt states, “[w]hen Homo sapiens emerged, its children were big-brained small-bodied weaklings who ran around the forest practically begging predators to eat them.” (50)
If we think the situation has changed, we are fooling ourselves.
Haidt’s book exposes how Gen Z—those born after 1995—are suffering from mental illness (broadly defined, and including depression, ADHD, substance abuse, etc.) at far higher rates than other generations. The cause, according to Haidt, is the explosion of social media just at the time when Gen Z members were coming of age. “Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and—as I will show—unsuitable for children and adolescents.” (6)
The evidence is compelling. Haidt is a social psychologist. He does not have a clinical practice. Rather, he looks at broad data sets to see what conclusions we can draw about human behavior and societal trends. Haidt’s conclusion, and the main thesis of his book, is that parents have overprotected children in the real world and underprotected in the virtual world, and those actions “are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.” (9)
Think of when you were a child. When I finished a school day at the Catholic elementary school I attended, I took a bus to a public school in the district where I lived. From there, I caught another bus to my house. It was my responsibility at a young age to make the transfer. I do not remember anyone walking me from bus to bus; I remember long periods of waiting in hallways and along outside walls until they called my bus number. Once I was home, I got out my house key or punched the garage door code and walked into an empty house. Sometimes I would make a snack or watch TV. Other times, I would get on my bike and go for a ride to the public park that was a couple miles away through a neighborhood. I wasn’t always home when my mom got home from her teaching job. And that was fine.
But at some point, that kind of routine stopped being fine for American children. Parents focused much more on stranger danger, physical danger, or whatever and stopped letting kids be kids. Letting kids roam free and play is essential to their development. “Play is the work of childhood, and all young mammals have the same job: Wire up your brain by playing vigorously and often.” (51) The iPhone changed all that in 2007. It brought about, Haidt explains, the transition from a “play-based childhood” to a “phone-based childhood.”
The transition to a phone-based existence was bad enough, but it has left a lasting imprint deep on teenagers’ psyches. A 2015 Pew Report noted that 25% of teens said they were online “almost constantly.” In 2022, that number was 46%. “These extraordinarily high rates suggest that even when members of Gen Z are not on their devices and appear to be doing something in the real world, such as sitting in class, eating a meal, or talking with you, a substantial portion of their attention is monitoring or worrying (being anxious) about events in the social metaverse.” (36) The dissociation with reality that many Gen Z folks have results in the same lack of social interaction that we all experienced during Covid. Teens and young adults who use social media often prefer the fictional “world” they create over the real world around them. Haidt states that “members of Gen Z began socially distancing themselves as soon as they got their first smartphones.” (120)
The fake, or virtual, world has four distinguishing characteristics according to Haidt—characteristics that oppose the four principles of the real world. The “real world” is:
Embodied. We use our bodies to communicate and respond consciously and unconsciously to others bodies.
Synchronous. Our interactions with others take place at the same time and involve turn-taking and learning the timing of a conversation.
One-to-one or one-to-several communication. There is only one interaction happening at a time, with each of us either communicating to one other person or in front of a group of people.
High bar for entry/exit. We take longer to allow people into our circles, invest more in them and our relationships, which leads to attempts to repair rifts and keep people engaged in the group.
These principles are opposed to the “virtual world,” which prizes social relationships and interactions that are 1) disembodied—only existing in text/language mediated by a computer or phone screen; 2) asynchronous—both in text-based communications and comments that are often far removed in time; 3) one-to-many—communications that are blasted to many people, often in parallel (like putting out multiple tweets at one time); and 4) low bar for entry/exit—people come and go from online communication, we can block others if we disagree, there is no real depth of relationship.
Social media does not offer real relationships. Facebook “friends” do not meet the true meaning of the word. What social media does do is to exacerbate the exact fears and anxieties of teens and young adults. For status- and image-conscious girls, social media presents a certain view of popularity and beauty that is not tethered to reality. And, particularly for girls, those comparisons take their toll.
Below are two figures from Haidt’s book. The iPhone came out in 2007, but the Facebook “Like” button and the Twitter “Retweet” button came out in 2009. In 2010, iPhones and other smart phones featured front-facing cameras for the first time. And in 2012, Facebook bought Instagram and its membership skyrocketed. The trends surrounding the timing of these major social media “developments” is hard to argue against.
The comparison to “perfect” people online, or trying to keep up with trends on social media can certainly be damaging. Haidt offers many different constituencies—parents, schools, government, etc.—potential solutions for dealing with the social media epidemic. It’s not a clear or easy solution. And it will take a group response to what is a group problem.
But I think it is worth trying to fix. The social media epidemic has made us less human. I think of the times when I have gone into a restaurant (more than once) and seen a Mom, Dad, and two kids all with individual screens in front of their faces. There is no family dinner happening there. No social interaction. There are just four individuals who are happy to ignore real, flesh-and-blood people. “It’s painful to be ignored, at any age. Just imagine being a teen trying to develop a sense of who you are and where you fit, while everyone you meet tells you, indirectly: You’re not as important as the people on my phone.” (122)
For those of us who are parents, it’s difficult to fight against the culture that tells us that kids should have phones and access to social media as early as middle school. But it is worth fighting against the trend. Haidt’s book demonstrates that your kids will be better friends, better conversationalists, better thinkers, and just more human by staying off their phones and social media.
Of course, we do not need to be part of Gen Z to feel the negative effects of social media. Perhaps you should challenge yourself to get off social media for a while and see what benefits you experience as a result.
Remember to turn every page. Enjoy your weekend. Please let me know whether you need anything.
Best,
Aaron
*If you have any recommendations for summer reading, please leave them in the comments.
Aaron, terrific content as usual.