BIBLIOTHERAPY: The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
Social Psychologist, Jonathan Haidt in his book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness gives strong support for a global cultural shift that happened for kids born after 1996, where free-play-based childhoods were replaced by phone-based childhoods and along with it the rates of mental health symptoms spiked. “Overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world” lead to an anxious generation. He outlines these main contributing factors: 1) The rise of easy access to personal technology devices, 2) increased focus in the 1990s on college admissions, 3) growing urban and car centric communities, 4) lack of knowing neighbors, 5) more women working, and 6) fears of kidnapping/violence in the 1990s.
“So even while parents worked to eliminate risk and freedom in the real world, they generally, and often unknowingly, granted full independence in the virtual world…”
NOTABLE DATES
1989: Jacob Wetterling abducted
1995-2010: Gen Z born (puberty began about 2009, time of powerful brain re-wiring)
2001: Most American families had a personal computer
2003: Broadband/Wifi for most households
2005: Xbox360 released
2006: PS3 released
2007: iPhone released
2008: Apple Store apps released
2009: Facebook ‘like’ introduced
2010: Front facing cameras on smartphones released, ER visits for self-harm up 48% boys/188% girls (to 2020), Suicide Rates up 91% boys/167% girls (to 2020)
2012: Facebook acquired Instagram, increase in major depressive disorder
Free-Based Play Childhood Benefits: attunement, social learning (developmental window from 9-15 yo), conflict resolution skills, discover mode vs. defend mode, competence, self-regulation
Real World: embodied, synchronous, 1:1 or 1:few communication, high bar for entry and exit
VS.
Phone-Based Childhood Harms: experience blocker, opportunity cost (all the time used not doing other developmentally appropriate things, preteens 40 hours week, teens 50 hours week), sleep deprivation, social deprivation, attention fragmentation, addiction, causes mental illness, failure to launch (Haidt gives detail about the impacts on boys vs. girls in this book.)
Virtual World: disembodied, asynchronous, 1:many (broadcasting), low bar for entry and exit (no need to develop conflict resolution skills, can just unfollow/unfriend)
Haidt lists out and encourages collective action steps to be taken by parents, big tech, government, and schools to tend to our kids and end this mental health epidemic. He offers the following RECOMMENDATIONS:
No smartphones before high school.
No social media before 14.
Phone-free schools.
More unsupervised play and childhood independence. (American elementary schools on average offer 27 minutes of recess a day.)
Coriander Living Collective believes in parenting children to support their development, creating discovery opportunities, setting limits on technology, and reducing opportunity costs. If you are needing parenting support, are concerned about technology use/addiction, or are suffering mental health symptoms: We are here for you! Just reach out. Read this book! Youth Toolkit!
