The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

Review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

           I got my first phone when I was 9 years old, to use as a gaming device on planes.  A year later, my mom finally caved in and let me download TikTok.  That single decision, led me into a new world of creativity, opportunity, and insecurity.  While I had access to new knowledge and inspiration, that was where I also learned that I was ugly.  I wasn't as skinny, tall, or as white as the girls on my phone.  I didn't have a button nose, and I wasn't confident.  Although I love my phone, and the cool apps that come with it, I truly wish that I had waited a little longer to start using a phone.
           I recently read The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist specializing in youth mental health.  Through research and personal experience, he offers a sympathetic approach to the stereotypical parental phrase of "It's because of the damn phone".

           He traces the sharp rise in mental illness to the shift from a “play-based childhood” to a “phone-based childhood” in the late 2000s.  Through data on insomnia, metaperception, the visual representation of popularity (i.e. likes and comments), and comparison with the childhood of the 2 previous generations, he builds a compelling argument that smartphones and social media have fundamentally
rewired Gen Z.

Haidt argues that the way millennials and Gen X were raised contributes to the issue.  The two generations were raised during the height of the “Stranger Danger” frenzy, raising them to fear what will happen to their kids in the outside world.  This overprotection in the outside world made them underprotective of their kids in the online world.  To combat this generational idea, Haidt proposes that parents must learn to make their children feel trusted, so that they feel in control of their lives instead of being controlled by their phones.  He also calls for parents to collectively delay giving their children smartphones, restrict social media until 16, and create phone-free schools.  Haidt places the responsibility of re-rewiring childhood on tech companies that insidiously design phones to be addictive, and on cultural norms rather than placing it on Gen Z’s lack of willpower.

However, the book has serious blind spots.  In Chapter 6, Haidt introduces the idea that rising rates of transgender people involves “social contagion”, stating that “...the fact that gender dysphoria now appears in social clusters (such as a group of close friends), the fact that parents and those who transition back to their natal sex identify social media as a major source of information and encouragement, and the fact that gender dysphoria is now being diagnosed among many adolescents who showed no signs of it as children all indicate that social influence and sociogenic transmission may be at work as well.”  While the rest of the book is well-researched and sympathetic , his take on LGBTQ+ youth is apathetic and risks reinforcing homophobic/transphobic narratives.

Haidt also states that the real world is inherently healthier than the online world, overlooking how social media can be a refuge for many, when their immediate environment is isolating or unsafe.

Finally, while phones amplify anxiety and social comparison, Haidt presents them as the primary cause of Gen-Z’s mental health crisis, oversimplifying a complex threat.  Economic instability, political crises, wars, and extreme isolation form the broader context surrounding Gen Z’s childhood.  Social media is not the root cause, it simply amplifies these preexisting factors.

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness offers a compelling and urgent warning about the negative impact that phones have on us.  It urges us to act as a collective for the sake of future generations, and his solutions don’t blame Gen Z for not trying harder.  They instead challenge social norms and companies that allowed the situation to become dire.

(However, the book is best when you go into it understanding that phones are just a contributing factor to our mental health crisis, not the sole architect)