THE ANXIOUS GENERATION by Jonathan Haidt

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but Jonathan Haidt’s latest, THE ANXIOUS GENERATION: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, a must-read for parents and educators, brilliantly captures his two main arguments.

On the cover, a sallow-faced girl sits half-buried in a ball pit full of yellow balls with smiles drawn on them. She is not playing in the ball pit, however, just staring glumly at her cell phone.

Haidt argues that since 1995, we have 1) overprotected children in the real world and 2) underprotected them in the virtual world. Indeed, this girl could not be more protected indoors–buried amidst a ball pit: a place where your parents have to take you and watch you, a place where you mainly interact with balls, not other children. The balls are soft; it’s impossible to get hurt, even if you fall. And yet this girl is NOT playing, but instead LOOKING AT SOMETHING ONLINE THAT WE (and her parents) CANNOT SEE. It could be anything: text messages from a random stranger, Instagram posts that make her feel inferior, TikTok videos promoting misinformation, pornography….

Overprotective parenting started in the 1990s. Haidt offers several theories for the cause. Perhaps it was an increasing focus on the competitiveness of college admissions, perhaps the rise of cable TV and 24/7 news stories about children being abused by adults, which in turn led to the assumption that adults couldn’t be trusted to be alone with children—so, only their parents could. Whatever the reasons, the consequences have been debilitating. Anxiety levels have risen. Fewer children have close friends. More children feel lonely.

Because unsupervised play in public spaces has evaporated, children have little practice being in “discover mode” as opposed to “defend mode” (p. 67). In “discover mode,” children outside playing freely with other children can learn to take healthy risks, deal with failure, and navigate interpersonal dynamics. They look for opportunities, think for themselves, and see the world like a kid in a candy shop.

By contrast, children in “defend mode” constantly scan for danger and worry about being safe. They operate from a scarcity mindset (p. 71). Ironically, if we could get more children to play outside with one another, we wouldn’t have to do what so many schools now do: try to teach them SEL (social-emotional learning) skills with PowerPoint slides!

Of the many stark graphs that Haidt shares, one of the most dreadful points out the increase in major depression among teens (p. 24). Depression has become 2.5 times more prevalent in girls and boys since 2010. What happened in 2010? For one thing, iPhones came out with front-facing cameras enabling selfies. And we saw a dramatic increase in the number of teens with smartphones. By 2016, 77% of teens owned a smartphone, as did 28% of children between the ages of 8 and 12 (p. 34). In 2012, Facebook bought Instagram, and by 2013, 90 million people were using Instagram to post selfies (p. 35). Because the goal of social media companies is to capture eyeballs (using any means possible) so they can earn advertising income, the rise of social media has led to widespread phone addiction in children (and, let’s face it, adults). For more on this phenomenon, see my post on the documentary “The Social Dilemma.” For so many children, monitoring their phones (esp. their social media) has become like a full-time job. If you’re a teacher or a parent, you know what I’m talking about: these children might be right in front of you, but they feel like they’re somewhere else.

Although densely stuffed with depressing data, this book also offers lots of practical solutions. For immediate action, Haidt proposes these four reforms:

1. No smartphones before high school.
2. No social media before 16.
3. Phone-free schools.
4. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence.

Obviously, it’s going to take collaboration to get everyone rowing in the same direction. Regarding #4, if parents can do their part, I would also encourage educators to explore outdoor education opportunities for students. For example, Princeton-Blairstown Center (where, full disclosure, I’ve been a trustee for more than 10 years) offers day trips, overnight trips, and a 5-day Summer Bridge program to help young people (esp. from historically marginalized communities) by nurturing their social-emotional skills through experiential, environmental, and adventure-based programming. Developing these skills enables participants to engage in self-discovery and transform their communities to create a more just world.

Bottom line: Please read this book. Discuss it with your friends and colleagues. Set screen/phone limits with your children. Work with your fellow teachers and administrators to make the difficult but much needed choice of being a phone-free school. Find as many opportunities as you can to get your children, students, and families outside engaged with each other in play. We can work together to turn this thing around.

PS–This post is being cross-posted as well on my TLC Blog.