What do you think?
Rate this book
The Anxious Generation
After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?
In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.
Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.
Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.
In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.
Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.
Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published March 26, 2024
About the author
Jonathan Haidt
28 books3,849 followersJonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He obtained his PhD in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and taught at the University of Virginia for sixteen years. His research focuses on moral and political psychology, as described in his book The Righteous Mind. His latest book, The Anxious Generation, is a direct continuation of the themes explored in The Coddling of the American Mind (written with Greg Lukianoff). He writes the After Babel Substack.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,636 reviews
May 31, 2024
4 Stars
Reviewing this book in a way that seems appropriate feels like a heavy lift that I'm just not capable of doing right now...and it's been a minute since I've read this, so I just want to get something down before this turns into an "RTC" in perpetuity review. So off we go...I apologize in advance for how crappy I'm sure this will be.
I was excited to read this because - to be blunt - I basically wanted to be able to speak intelligently about something I already believe: that social media is evil.
And before I get slammed for the hypocrisy of posting this here, hold your horses.
I am aware that goodreads is technically a social media site.
But it's not Tik Tok.
It's not Instagram.
It's not YouTube.
Can it be just as destructive as any of those if someone gets overly invested and attached? Sure.
But for the purposes of this review - and much like Haidt did in this book - when I reference social media, I am referring mainly to all the Tik Toks and Instagrams out there.
Cause they are the parasites that are truly contributing to the ever-increasing rotting of our society. And yes, I really believe that. Just like I believed giving everyone a participation trophy was a bad idea back in the early 2000s.
Do I think social media has its upsides? infinitesimally. And definitely not enough to offset the downsides. Cause our brains and minds were not meant to operate this way. It's just that simple.
I thought the way Haidt unpacked the critical milestones and transitions periods of childhood was very well said and well researched. And the way he compared pre-smart phone childhoods to post-smart phone childhoods was very interesting.
I very much enjoyed the earlier and middle portions of this book overall. As I stated above, everything was very well-stated and well-researched. I did think some parts were a bit redundant. And his solution plan...while admirable and logical...I just don't know how it would get it done, sadly.
Regardless, I think this is a must read, especially for parents.
Mental Illness, narcissism, and just an overall failure to launch has because an appropriate norm. And it's scary. Your friends and followers don't need to see every meal you ate on vacation or how many times you breathed in and out today. And they don't need a daily discourse about the status of your mental health. Stop navel-gazing. Seriously. It's ridiculous. We need to all get a grip and get the fuck off our phones.
Reviewing this book in a way that seems appropriate feels like a heavy lift that I'm just not capable of doing right now...and it's been a minute since I've read this, so I just want to get something down before this turns into an "RTC" in perpetuity review. So off we go...I apologize in advance for how crappy I'm sure this will be.
I was excited to read this because - to be blunt - I basically wanted to be able to speak intelligently about something I already believe: that social media is evil.
And before I get slammed for the hypocrisy of posting this here, hold your horses.
I am aware that goodreads is technically a social media site.
But it's not Tik Tok.
It's not Instagram.
It's not YouTube.
Can it be just as destructive as any of those if someone gets overly invested and attached? Sure.
But for the purposes of this review - and much like Haidt did in this book - when I reference social media, I am referring mainly to all the Tik Toks and Instagrams out there.
Cause they are the parasites that are truly contributing to the ever-increasing rotting of our society. And yes, I really believe that. Just like I believed giving everyone a participation trophy was a bad idea back in the early 2000s.
Do I think social media has its upsides? infinitesimally. And definitely not enough to offset the downsides. Cause our brains and minds were not meant to operate this way. It's just that simple.
I thought the way Haidt unpacked the critical milestones and transitions periods of childhood was very well said and well researched. And the way he compared pre-smart phone childhoods to post-smart phone childhoods was very interesting.
I very much enjoyed the earlier and middle portions of this book overall. As I stated above, everything was very well-stated and well-researched. I did think some parts were a bit redundant. And his solution plan...while admirable and logical...I just don't know how it would get it done, sadly.
Regardless, I think this is a must read, especially for parents.
Mental Illness, narcissism, and just an overall failure to launch has because an appropriate norm. And it's scary. Your friends and followers don't need to see every meal you ate on vacation or how many times you breathed in and out today. And they don't need a daily discourse about the status of your mental health. Stop navel-gazing. Seriously. It's ridiculous. We need to all get a grip and get the fuck off our phones.
April 3, 2024
Children should not have smartphones and social media until they are 16.
As a parent of a young child, I read this book with interest and horror. This book is about the tragic great rewiring that was inflicted on Gen Z between 2010 and 2015 that completely upended them from a normal childhood and caused a generational mental health crisis. The author does a good job of explaining himself with good research and makes a compelling case against a phone-based childhood and praises the virtues of a play-based childhood. I think this book was very good and important but I didn’t agree with everything and think some of his reasoning is actually fallacious when it comes to “helicopter” parenting, which I’ll get into.
Depression, self harm and anxiety are undoubtedly higher in Gen Z and have a sharp rise in boys and girls in 2010 and thereafter. One could speculate that these children grew up after the 9/11 era and after the 2008 financial crisis but, as the author argues, every generation has socio-economic upheaval but doesn't typically result in dramatic drop in mental health. The most likely, and obvious, explanation is that their childhood became steeped in toxic self comparisons on social media (affecting girls more) and video game and pornography addiction (affecting boys more.) Social media is a strategic, asynchronous, disembodied interaction with the aims of fostering and protecting an individual's self brand. Social media platforms are the most efficient conformity machines ever invented where a user can literally gauge approval by numerical likes and views. This is really bad for everyone and basically inhumane to expose a child’s brain to this type of thinking. When a child starts doing this around the age of 10, they chase the dopamine hit of views and likes and sink the enormous opportunity of real-life social interactions and development that prepare them for adulthood. Social media doesn’t just correlate with poor mental health, it is causative. I think the author demonstrates this beyond doubt.
Children have “defend mode” and “discovery mode”, both useful but the former gets engaged more with a phone based childhood. Free and unsupervised play foster the discovery mode where children learn how to navigate not only the three dimensional space but relationships and their own feelings. A phone based childhood constantly puts a child in defend mode which spills over to real life and chronic anxiety. Social media inflicts sleep deprivation and social deprivation along with attention fragmentation and addiction. Again, these things are awful on an already socialized adult, imagine the cost on a child’s mind that has many years to go before adult brain development.
According to the author, there are real gender differences between boys and girls which are almost certainly sociogenic (culturally created) and these differences account for the disparate impact of a phone based childhood on boys and girls. Girls strive for communion and relationship building where boys strive for self autonomy and actualization. These culturally programmed desires I believe are functionally very real. Girl aggression is relational which explains why social media impacts them more than for boys. Take all the self comparison to airbrush models on magazine covers from the 70s and now put that on hyperdrive, socialize it over a screen, adding cyber bullying and dopamine addiction, and you will have a very sad, lonely and anxious girl. For boys, video games can fragment their socialization and silo it off into asynchronous relationships that then addict and hamper their growth. The easy access to pornography, while impacting both boys and girls, seems to hit boys harder who consume it at very early ages.
Here’s where I have a problem with this book: the author creates a false dilemma between a play-based childhood and phone-based childhood. These two things are not mutually exclusive and the author likes to partition them off like they are the only two options. As a parent who is very involved with my child’s life, I take umbrage with the term “helicopter parent” which the author uses. This well intentioned author asserts many times in this book that during the 1980s, parents become overprotective and stopped letting their kids have autonomy. My first response is what!?. This overt generalization is overtly speculative and laughably simplistic. In my opinion, having more parental presence, particularly when it comes to safety, is not hampering children’s socialization and growth. I’m not joking here: the author thinks kids should be able to play in junkyards and with fire, unsupervised. Without presenting much evidence, he talks about the statistic improbability of your child being really harmed or kidnapped. Okay, but what about the stakes? They are enormous. I think it's a parents responsibility to protect them from catastrophe, regardless of how unlikely because the stakes are absolutely enormous. The author creates a false dichotomy that you either must let your children roam the streets unsupervised or put a phone in front of their faces. Of course, this is not true. There is an entire spectrum of parenting, one which could involve letting children roam under freeway overpasses while also sticking a phone in front of their noses for 6 hours a day. I found his take on this bizarre and his assertions that parent’s are hampering their children’s development with over supervision mostly unsupported. “Helicopter parenting” has become a term used by parents who don’t actively engage with their children. Anyway, I digress.
The solutions the author offers are very good: no social media or smart phones before age 16 and phone free schools. He also laments the loss of spirituality and suggests we need to engage more in shared sacredness, self transcendence (the literal opposite of social media), be slow to anger and quick to forgive (never happens on social media) and to find awe in nature. Overall, I think this was a very good book that everyone should read.
As a parent of a young child, I read this book with interest and horror. This book is about the tragic great rewiring that was inflicted on Gen Z between 2010 and 2015 that completely upended them from a normal childhood and caused a generational mental health crisis. The author does a good job of explaining himself with good research and makes a compelling case against a phone-based childhood and praises the virtues of a play-based childhood. I think this book was very good and important but I didn’t agree with everything and think some of his reasoning is actually fallacious when it comes to “helicopter” parenting, which I’ll get into.
Depression, self harm and anxiety are undoubtedly higher in Gen Z and have a sharp rise in boys and girls in 2010 and thereafter. One could speculate that these children grew up after the 9/11 era and after the 2008 financial crisis but, as the author argues, every generation has socio-economic upheaval but doesn't typically result in dramatic drop in mental health. The most likely, and obvious, explanation is that their childhood became steeped in toxic self comparisons on social media (affecting girls more) and video game and pornography addiction (affecting boys more.) Social media is a strategic, asynchronous, disembodied interaction with the aims of fostering and protecting an individual's self brand. Social media platforms are the most efficient conformity machines ever invented where a user can literally gauge approval by numerical likes and views. This is really bad for everyone and basically inhumane to expose a child’s brain to this type of thinking. When a child starts doing this around the age of 10, they chase the dopamine hit of views and likes and sink the enormous opportunity of real-life social interactions and development that prepare them for adulthood. Social media doesn’t just correlate with poor mental health, it is causative. I think the author demonstrates this beyond doubt.
Children have “defend mode” and “discovery mode”, both useful but the former gets engaged more with a phone based childhood. Free and unsupervised play foster the discovery mode where children learn how to navigate not only the three dimensional space but relationships and their own feelings. A phone based childhood constantly puts a child in defend mode which spills over to real life and chronic anxiety. Social media inflicts sleep deprivation and social deprivation along with attention fragmentation and addiction. Again, these things are awful on an already socialized adult, imagine the cost on a child’s mind that has many years to go before adult brain development.
According to the author, there are real gender differences between boys and girls which are almost certainly sociogenic (culturally created) and these differences account for the disparate impact of a phone based childhood on boys and girls. Girls strive for communion and relationship building where boys strive for self autonomy and actualization. These culturally programmed desires I believe are functionally very real. Girl aggression is relational which explains why social media impacts them more than for boys. Take all the self comparison to airbrush models on magazine covers from the 70s and now put that on hyperdrive, socialize it over a screen, adding cyber bullying and dopamine addiction, and you will have a very sad, lonely and anxious girl. For boys, video games can fragment their socialization and silo it off into asynchronous relationships that then addict and hamper their growth. The easy access to pornography, while impacting both boys and girls, seems to hit boys harder who consume it at very early ages.
Here’s where I have a problem with this book: the author creates a false dilemma between a play-based childhood and phone-based childhood. These two things are not mutually exclusive and the author likes to partition them off like they are the only two options. As a parent who is very involved with my child’s life, I take umbrage with the term “helicopter parent” which the author uses. This well intentioned author asserts many times in this book that during the 1980s, parents become overprotective and stopped letting their kids have autonomy. My first response is what!?. This overt generalization is overtly speculative and laughably simplistic. In my opinion, having more parental presence, particularly when it comes to safety, is not hampering children’s socialization and growth. I’m not joking here: the author thinks kids should be able to play in junkyards and with fire, unsupervised. Without presenting much evidence, he talks about the statistic improbability of your child being really harmed or kidnapped. Okay, but what about the stakes? They are enormous. I think it's a parents responsibility to protect them from catastrophe, regardless of how unlikely because the stakes are absolutely enormous. The author creates a false dichotomy that you either must let your children roam the streets unsupervised or put a phone in front of their faces. Of course, this is not true. There is an entire spectrum of parenting, one which could involve letting children roam under freeway overpasses while also sticking a phone in front of their noses for 6 hours a day. I found his take on this bizarre and his assertions that parent’s are hampering their children’s development with over supervision mostly unsupported. “Helicopter parenting” has become a term used by parents who don’t actively engage with their children. Anyway, I digress.
The solutions the author offers are very good: no social media or smart phones before age 16 and phone free schools. He also laments the loss of spirituality and suggests we need to engage more in shared sacredness, self transcendence (the literal opposite of social media), be slow to anger and quick to forgive (never happens on social media) and to find awe in nature. Overall, I think this was a very good book that everyone should read.
March 31, 2024
I'm more eager to recommend this book than a preteen Evangelical after watching God's Not Dead.
It's hard for me to think of a single person that would not benefit from reading this book. Especially parents.
Buy and read!
It's hard for me to think of a single person that would not benefit from reading this book. Especially parents.
Buy and read!
March 26, 2024
5 stars. Extremely well researched book about why we should not give our kids smartphones due to indisputable evidence that it causes mental illness, anxiety and depression. Children are just not equipped for social media and the trade offs they will experience with addictive phone based free time. Kids need play time, outside with other children. This book was very enlightening and I will be recommending it to everyone I know.
Read
April 12, 2024I learned that all social media is bad (except goodreads, of course)
May 23, 2024
In Chapter 6, Haidt casually implies that more young people than ever are identifying as transgender or gender expansive due to "social contagion" theory. This theory posits that if your friends are transgender, you will become transgender. Social contagion is the root of the right-wing transphobic talking point of "rapid onset gender dysphoria," which is the false claim of increasing numbers of children suddenly identifying as trans and then accessing hormones and surgery.
In a 400-page book full of discussion on the gendered differences found among Gen Z users of social media and their mental health, Haidt spends approximately four paragraphs discussing the existence of transgender people. The three main text paragraphs are used to introduce rapid onsent gender dysphoria as legitimate: "...[T]he 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." To back up these claims, Haidt cites a widely-discredited and debunked article on the phenomenon of rapid onset gender dysphoria which has been taken up by the right wing to pass anti-trans legislation. Haidt also fails to interview any transgender individuals for the book, despite inclusion of interviews with cisgender individuals throughout.
As of this book's publishing, 24 states have banned gender affirming care for youth. We know access to gender-affirming care is lifesaving and no child is walking into a doctor's office and leaving with hormones in hand. We also know about the disproportionate rate of anxiety, depression, suicide, and substance use disorders among LGBTQ+ youth. This book is lazy journalism at best and outright transphobic propaganda at worst.
In a 400-page book full of discussion on the gendered differences found among Gen Z users of social media and their mental health, Haidt spends approximately four paragraphs discussing the existence of transgender people. The three main text paragraphs are used to introduce rapid onsent gender dysphoria as legitimate: "...[T]he 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." To back up these claims, Haidt cites a widely-discredited and debunked article on the phenomenon of rapid onset gender dysphoria which has been taken up by the right wing to pass anti-trans legislation. Haidt also fails to interview any transgender individuals for the book, despite inclusion of interviews with cisgender individuals throughout.
As of this book's publishing, 24 states have banned gender affirming care for youth. We know access to gender-affirming care is lifesaving and no child is walking into a doctor's office and leaving with hormones in hand. We also know about the disproportionate rate of anxiety, depression, suicide, and substance use disorders among LGBTQ+ youth. This book is lazy journalism at best and outright transphobic propaganda at worst.
May 13, 2024
If you are a parent of a child between the ages of 0 and 18: please do yourself the favor of reading Jonathon Haidt’s book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness”. It may save yourself much frustration, fear, and grief down the line.
Haidt’s book is the inevitable endpoint of research and knowledge that started in 2010 with Nicholas Carr’s book “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to To Our Brains” and followed, in 2022, by Johann Hari’s book “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t pay Attention—-and How to Think Deeply Again”.
Haidt’s book provides conclusive (or pretty damned near) evidence of what Carr could only hypothetically predict would happen 14 years later and substantiates, with further studies and statistics, what Hari was saying in his book.
The basic premise is this: Sometime around the years 2010 to 2015, something drastic and worrisome started happening to children born in the late-1990s (a demographic of children often referred to as “Gen Z”). Rates of childhood depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation began to skyrocket across the country. This was across racial, ethnic, and gender lines, although it seemed to effect girls more.
Haidt and his researchers believe that a combination of factors are the reason for these high rates of mental illness among children.
One factor is a type of parenting called “helicopter parenting” that became prevalent, which essentially involves an extreme overprotection of children, out of an irrational sense of safety, that does not allow—-or over-regulates—-certain childish activities that children of the ‘70s and ‘80s engaged in quite regularly: climbing trees, walking unsupervised to the park or school or store, playing on a playground, skateboarding, staying in a house by him or herself.
Another factor is the prevalence of devices that allowed children a preponderance of “screen time” that far exceeded previous norms in previous generations. Haidt directly links this rise of device usage to the introduction of smartphones (specifically, iPhones, which were brought to market in 2007) and popular social media platforms like Facebook (launched in 2004).
A third factor is an inexplicable “underprotection” of children from the Internet and, specifically, social media sites. So-called helicopter parents were fearful of their children playing on a jungle gym, but they seemed to have a complete lack of worry about their children being vulnerable to cyberbullying or on-line sexual predators. One explanation for this—-given by parents themselves in studies—-is the parents’ own distractedness and addiction to device usage.
Haidt’s solutions—-based on the advice of mental health professionals, educators, and social scientists—-is weirdly simple: Don’t give your kid a smartphone until they are about 16-18; Limit kids in both time and access to the Internet; allow kids to do more activities unsupervised; increase the amount of playtime for kids.
According to almost every scientific study, playtime has been shown to be vitally important to a child’s development. Despite this fact, many schools have limited or eliminated playtime and replaced it with more academics, such as testing, to detrimental results. Thankfully, there is a swing back towards more playtime during school hours, especially more unsupervised playtime.
Even Haidt acknowledges that it goes against every fiber in one’s being to let your kid walk to the grocery store in town by him or herself. On the same token, it’s hard to give up the “babysitter” benefits of the iPad or iPhone.
I’ll be honest: I get a shitload of laundry and house-cleaning done when my daughter is curled up on the couch playing God-knows-what on her iPad, and while I trust that my daughter is playing appropriate games and not browsing Youtube for porn, I realize that it’s not the healthiest thing for her.
Seriously, Haidt’s book is an important resource for parents, teachers, and health care providers. We need to be more aggressive advocates for the health of our children, but if healthier children means loosening the reins and letting our kids engage in more risky activities by themselves while simultaneously limiting—-or forbidding—-access to stupid shit like Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook, then we need to do some serious soul-searching as parents.
Haidt’s book is the inevitable endpoint of research and knowledge that started in 2010 with Nicholas Carr’s book “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to To Our Brains” and followed, in 2022, by Johann Hari’s book “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t pay Attention—-and How to Think Deeply Again”.
Haidt’s book provides conclusive (or pretty damned near) evidence of what Carr could only hypothetically predict would happen 14 years later and substantiates, with further studies and statistics, what Hari was saying in his book.
The basic premise is this: Sometime around the years 2010 to 2015, something drastic and worrisome started happening to children born in the late-1990s (a demographic of children often referred to as “Gen Z”). Rates of childhood depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation began to skyrocket across the country. This was across racial, ethnic, and gender lines, although it seemed to effect girls more.
Haidt and his researchers believe that a combination of factors are the reason for these high rates of mental illness among children.
One factor is a type of parenting called “helicopter parenting” that became prevalent, which essentially involves an extreme overprotection of children, out of an irrational sense of safety, that does not allow—-or over-regulates—-certain childish activities that children of the ‘70s and ‘80s engaged in quite regularly: climbing trees, walking unsupervised to the park or school or store, playing on a playground, skateboarding, staying in a house by him or herself.
Another factor is the prevalence of devices that allowed children a preponderance of “screen time” that far exceeded previous norms in previous generations. Haidt directly links this rise of device usage to the introduction of smartphones (specifically, iPhones, which were brought to market in 2007) and popular social media platforms like Facebook (launched in 2004).
A third factor is an inexplicable “underprotection” of children from the Internet and, specifically, social media sites. So-called helicopter parents were fearful of their children playing on a jungle gym, but they seemed to have a complete lack of worry about their children being vulnerable to cyberbullying or on-line sexual predators. One explanation for this—-given by parents themselves in studies—-is the parents’ own distractedness and addiction to device usage.
Haidt’s solutions—-based on the advice of mental health professionals, educators, and social scientists—-is weirdly simple: Don’t give your kid a smartphone until they are about 16-18; Limit kids in both time and access to the Internet; allow kids to do more activities unsupervised; increase the amount of playtime for kids.
According to almost every scientific study, playtime has been shown to be vitally important to a child’s development. Despite this fact, many schools have limited or eliminated playtime and replaced it with more academics, such as testing, to detrimental results. Thankfully, there is a swing back towards more playtime during school hours, especially more unsupervised playtime.
Even Haidt acknowledges that it goes against every fiber in one’s being to let your kid walk to the grocery store in town by him or herself. On the same token, it’s hard to give up the “babysitter” benefits of the iPad or iPhone.
I’ll be honest: I get a shitload of laundry and house-cleaning done when my daughter is curled up on the couch playing God-knows-what on her iPad, and while I trust that my daughter is playing appropriate games and not browsing Youtube for porn, I realize that it’s not the healthiest thing for her.
Seriously, Haidt’s book is an important resource for parents, teachers, and health care providers. We need to be more aggressive advocates for the health of our children, but if healthier children means loosening the reins and letting our kids engage in more risky activities by themselves while simultaneously limiting—-or forbidding—-access to stupid shit like Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook, then we need to do some serious soul-searching as parents.
April 28, 2024
This book is going to be my new go-to baby shower gift for new parents that I know and love well, wrapped up nicely with a Sophie Giraffe on top. I share Haidt's sense of urgency on the issue of smartphones and adolescents; parents need to figure out their take on screens before the kids are old enough to start asking. Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death helped me do that in the early 2000's, long before I was a parent myself. But Postman, writing in the mid-1980's and primarily concerned with television, could not have imagined what was coming.
I savored The Anxious Generation, and I'm so grateful to Haidt for writing it. In it, Haidt carefully unpacks with clear and engaging writing what he refers to as The Great Rewiring of Childhood: "...a profound transformation of human consciousness and relationships [that] occurred, for American teens, between 2010 and 2015. This is the birth of the phone-based childhood. It marks the definitive end of the play-based childhood" (34-35).
Haidt argues that as a society we've made two big mistakes that have contributed to an international mental health crisis among adolescents: "overprotecting children in the real world (where they need to learn from vast amounts of direct experience) and underprotecting them online (where they are particularly vulnerable during puberty)" (15). I believe down to my core that Haidt is right on this. Abigail Shrier's excellent book Bad Therapy argues the first point. But I think Haidt is right not to neglect the second point. They clearly go together.
Anyone who has read a few of my Goodreads reviews may have noticed that I have written about smartphones and children before. Out of conviction, my husband and I decided that we will not buy smartphones for our kids. This includes our teenager, who is not aware of even a single other student in her secondary school who, like her, does not own a smartphone. In our experience, many parents at our kids' schools started buying smartphones for their children in Year 5 (The UK equivalent of 4th grade in the USA). This comports with Haidt's findings, and feels absurd to us. Our sense is that, with the exception of a few fellow religious friends, both Christian and Muslim, we are largely standing alone on this issue. As Haidt points out, "an individual acting alone faces high costs, but if people can coordinate and act together, they can more easily choose actions that are better for all in the long run" (12). This book, which already seems to have won a large readership, encourages me that a good change may be on the horizon.
I have only one criticism of The Anxious Generation but it is more personal in nature, and so does not tip the scales much against this book. Unlike Haidt, an atheist, I believe as a Christian that human beings are more than just "highly sociable mammals" (70) who have evolved to thrive under certain social conditions. I want more for my children than to help them grow into "socially functional adults" (54) who will enjoy "success" in the culture I find myself in. I don't believe that videogame addiction and pornography use are harmful and wrong solely because they tamper with our "evolved desires" (196) and prevent us from having "real world exploration and adventure" (193). Unlike Haidt, I believe that the "God-shaped hole" is real, and not something that "natural selection might have carved" (215). At the end of the day, what can Haidt say to the Hikikomori who assures us that he is happy and fulfilled living his confined, nocturnal, socially withdrawn existence? It's not obvious to me that Haidt would have anything much to say to that Hikikomori. Haidt's argument is especially profound and urgent to me because I believe that we are made in God's image, to live in his world and enjoy communion with him and our fellow human beings. Anything that puts a barrier between the chief end for which we are made and my kids is something that I will take pains to avoid.
That said, The Anxious Generation is a book for everyone, not just parents. I sincerely hope that my kids' school administrators will read it. This is where I think this book could have the biggest impact.
I savored The Anxious Generation, and I'm so grateful to Haidt for writing it. In it, Haidt carefully unpacks with clear and engaging writing what he refers to as The Great Rewiring of Childhood: "...a profound transformation of human consciousness and relationships [that] occurred, for American teens, between 2010 and 2015. This is the birth of the phone-based childhood. It marks the definitive end of the play-based childhood" (34-35).
Haidt argues that as a society we've made two big mistakes that have contributed to an international mental health crisis among adolescents: "overprotecting children in the real world (where they need to learn from vast amounts of direct experience) and underprotecting them online (where they are particularly vulnerable during puberty)" (15). I believe down to my core that Haidt is right on this. Abigail Shrier's excellent book Bad Therapy argues the first point. But I think Haidt is right not to neglect the second point. They clearly go together.
Anyone who has read a few of my Goodreads reviews may have noticed that I have written about smartphones and children before. Out of conviction, my husband and I decided that we will not buy smartphones for our kids. This includes our teenager, who is not aware of even a single other student in her secondary school who, like her, does not own a smartphone. In our experience, many parents at our kids' schools started buying smartphones for their children in Year 5 (The UK equivalent of 4th grade in the USA). This comports with Haidt's findings, and feels absurd to us. Our sense is that, with the exception of a few fellow religious friends, both Christian and Muslim, we are largely standing alone on this issue. As Haidt points out, "an individual acting alone faces high costs, but if people can coordinate and act together, they can more easily choose actions that are better for all in the long run" (12). This book, which already seems to have won a large readership, encourages me that a good change may be on the horizon.
I have only one criticism of The Anxious Generation but it is more personal in nature, and so does not tip the scales much against this book. Unlike Haidt, an atheist, I believe as a Christian that human beings are more than just "highly sociable mammals" (70) who have evolved to thrive under certain social conditions. I want more for my children than to help them grow into "socially functional adults" (54) who will enjoy "success" in the culture I find myself in. I don't believe that videogame addiction and pornography use are harmful and wrong solely because they tamper with our "evolved desires" (196) and prevent us from having "real world exploration and adventure" (193). Unlike Haidt, I believe that the "God-shaped hole" is real, and not something that "natural selection might have carved" (215). At the end of the day, what can Haidt say to the Hikikomori who assures us that he is happy and fulfilled living his confined, nocturnal, socially withdrawn existence? It's not obvious to me that Haidt would have anything much to say to that Hikikomori. Haidt's argument is especially profound and urgent to me because I believe that we are made in God's image, to live in his world and enjoy communion with him and our fellow human beings. Anything that puts a barrier between the chief end for which we are made and my kids is something that I will take pains to avoid.
That said, The Anxious Generation is a book for everyone, not just parents. I sincerely hope that my kids' school administrators will read it. This is where I think this book could have the biggest impact.
May 13, 2024
I was so excited about this book and could not feel more let down. The science is presented as misleading evidence for causal inference and the citations for some of the boldest claims are weak - citing Haidt’s own Substack, analyses that Haidt says he ran but never published, work in age groups that aren’t the ones under discussion, and more.
There is also a pervasive unchecked privilege throughout the book - and its recommendations - that is cringe-worthy. These are not recommendations for all families and the work could do way more to acknowledge that. A psychologist should know better.
My most generous interpretation is that Haidt feels strongly about this topic but the book was pushed out before a rigorous scientific platform was really there. The result feels like a work that should be classified as an opinion piece, not as psychological science.
There is also a pervasive unchecked privilege throughout the book - and its recommendations - that is cringe-worthy. These are not recommendations for all families and the work could do way more to acknowledge that. A psychologist should know better.
My most generous interpretation is that Haidt feels strongly about this topic but the book was pushed out before a rigorous scientific platform was really there. The result feels like a work that should be classified as an opinion piece, not as psychological science.
April 3, 2024
Some people are out here saying that Haidt is fear mongering when it comes to the link between social media and poor mental health outcomes. And to those people I say...you've got to be joking. The link is clear. If you doubted it, you won't after reading this book.
This book is a mixture of science, research, tips for parents, and suggested policy changes. If you are just wanting some guidance on what limits to set with your kid's tech use, I think you'd find this cumbersome. You could get a lot of the main points by looking him up on YouTube and listening to some of his interviews. But if you are interested in psychology, sociology, etc., I think you'll appreciate how thorough he is.
I love liberty, but I am totally in support of Haidt's policy suggestions to limit minors' access to social media and place more accountability in the hands of Big Tech. As smart as we parents may be, we are no match for AI and sophisticated algorithms. Y'all, they could stop this nonsense if they wanted to. But they don't because they're making too much money off exploiting our kids. We as parents must protect our children using every tool available to us. (I am apalled at how many of my peers treat schools with derision when they try to set phone limits during school hours.)
We've got to be in lock step on this.
This book is a mixture of science, research, tips for parents, and suggested policy changes. If you are just wanting some guidance on what limits to set with your kid's tech use, I think you'd find this cumbersome. You could get a lot of the main points by looking him up on YouTube and listening to some of his interviews. But if you are interested in psychology, sociology, etc., I think you'll appreciate how thorough he is.
I love liberty, but I am totally in support of Haidt's policy suggestions to limit minors' access to social media and place more accountability in the hands of Big Tech. As smart as we parents may be, we are no match for AI and sophisticated algorithms. Y'all, they could stop this nonsense if they wanted to. But they don't because they're making too much money off exploiting our kids. We as parents must protect our children using every tool available to us. (I am apalled at how many of my peers treat schools with derision when they try to set phone limits during school hours.)
We've got to be in lock step on this.
June 14, 2024
Some of this book I was totally on board with, some of it had parts I had a harder time agreeing 100% with. This book is very thorough, though. Are kids growing up in this time of AI and other technologies losing some critical piece of childhood development? Has it hindered their social capacities with other humans? The solutions the author suggests are very multifaceted approaches. A complete overhaul and redesign of the educational system that is currently in place would have to pass through Congress and cutting through all of that red tape seems impossible.
A lot of food for thought. What is needed is action it seems. I like books like these because they show what implemented change could look like. I dislike books like these because that’s generally where it ends. Nothing gets resolved. It’s a good book to reflect on. Society moves on. I’m hopeful we can do better by some future generations but it’s truly going to be an uphill battle at the pace we are going I fear.
A lot of food for thought. What is needed is action it seems. I like books like these because they show what implemented change could look like. I dislike books like these because that’s generally where it ends. Nothing gets resolved. It’s a good book to reflect on. Society moves on. I’m hopeful we can do better by some future generations but it’s truly going to be an uphill battle at the pace we are going I fear.
June 6, 2024
The most important book I’ll read this year. I wish I could put this into the hands of every parent, every teacher, every caregiver, and every teen. So much data and research, combined with TANGIBLE action steps I actually feel equipped to take.
April 12, 2024
This book is very good and I would encourage everyone, but especially those with children, to read it. However it's also frustrating because the evidence seems so clear that we are headed towards a bad result and we will just not course correct in any sort of meaningful way. I hope this book inspires A) a small amount of parents to be more intentional with their kid's level of screens, B) a small amount of people to be more intentional with their own level of screens, and C) more research and books into this topic which will hopefully result in D) some actual change on a societal level.
But we'll see.
But we'll see.
June 21, 2024
This book was a super interesting read for me as a millennial. I’m only six years older than the oldest Gen Zs (we would have been in elementary school at the same time!) but in many ways, their upbringings and teen years were so different from mine due to the rapid acceleration of social media and smartphones. This book really gave me a peek into their world. I don’t agree with all of the author’s arguments and conclusions, and parts of the book felt a bit dry, but overall it was pretty insightful. I think this is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the direction our society is heading in…whether you’re a parent, a young person, or (like me) just curious.
April 1, 2024
Mandatory reading for any parent…Haidt’s thesis is that social media and smart phones are damaging kids…he’s right and he’s got the receipts…
Huge upticks in depression, anxiety etc as these tech items come on line…add to that the safety culture that parents have embraced and you’ve got a lot of kids that are in a Peter Pan land that exists only on screens but encompasses their lives…
The world isn’t little house on the prairie and our access to ginormous amounts of info has created a catastrophism where we are all too aware of the really bad outcome…humans aren’t good at calculating black swan events so we over protect our kids…guilty as charged…
I’d disagree with his more free play time at school in that yes give kids more free range time but keep it outside of school…otherwise, his prescription seems clear and irrefutable…
Huge upticks in depression, anxiety etc as these tech items come on line…add to that the safety culture that parents have embraced and you’ve got a lot of kids that are in a Peter Pan land that exists only on screens but encompasses their lives…
The world isn’t little house on the prairie and our access to ginormous amounts of info has created a catastrophism where we are all too aware of the really bad outcome…humans aren’t good at calculating black swan events so we over protect our kids…guilty as charged…
I’d disagree with his more free play time at school in that yes give kids more free range time but keep it outside of school…otherwise, his prescription seems clear and irrefutable…
June 15, 2024
The author points out many of the issues of children growing up with smartphones and social media, and the picture that he paints is not pretty. He calls for a reduction of screen time, higher age limits for creating social media accounts, and more play time for children. Overall, his ideas are good, but many of the solutions he calls for require group or community action rather than individual action, so if others are not willing to go along, children will remain under pressure to use social media. Perhaps the genie is already out of the bottle.
May 17, 2024
Where to begin with this? This is a book that has a very specific hypothesis and sticks to it, regardless of whether or not the data employed to advance that argument is accurate or, indeed, based upon robust measures of what is being reported as the problem. This is a shame as the overall argument - that technology has “rewired” childhood for the worse - is one that many parents will want to hear and have their own suspicions confirmed. Well, this book will do that for many a reader despite its flaws.
It opens with a spurious example of kids settling Mars - spoiler: it doesn’t go well as our bodies are not adapted to a different environment, and those future hypothetical settlers of Mars are unlikely to be well adapted to return to Earth. But the drive to achieve something new is often driven by forces which do not have the best intentions for humans at heart. Essentially the thought experiment uses physiognomy as a parallel to social media use, which is dubious at best. The supposed blame being levelled at technology firms for harming children in the opening gambit seems to lack a consideration of any and all forms of regulatory or legal oversights in its rush to make a questionable situation seem far worse than it is.
Does it get much better than this? Not really.
Instead of asking who it was that enabled access to technology, devices and services (surely the domain of parents), the writer goes straight into the blame game, levelling this square at the door of social media site creators, video game makers, and pornographers. Reading this left me baffled. While there are genuine reasons for not wanting kids to spend time engaging with material that’s inappropriate for them, I was perplexed as to how the age limits imposed on these products by third parties and the lack of parental control were seldom mentioned. It’s as if the kids mentioned were able to gorge themselves unrestrained on all-you-can-eat buffet of uncensored digital content. Parental controls have existed since I was a teenager so how come they aren’t being considered, never mind enforced? Is it because that would make for some uncomfortable shifting in blame? At least the conclusion of the book does encourage parents to get acquainted with these tools…
What’s next? Compare social media to tobacco? Lead paint? Yup.
At least he makes some solid claims about displacement activities and sleep deprivation having negative social consequences. These are clearly valid points, and I am broadly sympathetic to the general thesis, but the science of devices and blue-light circadian rhythms’ impact upon sleep are highly disputed when it comes to this line of argumentation (as pointed out by Pete Etchells in his book, Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time). Why not look at, say, diet and concentrations of sugar, caffeine and artificial sweeteners alongside this data? Why not consider how access to digital media has enabled young people to see through the shallow promises of neoliberal precariousness? Nah, it must be the phones.
But then we have the section that is reliant upon Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus - a writer who is not without controversy with regard to integrity. That the same anecdote about a bored and displaced teen gets dragged up a few times to fill the narrative, when many readers will have serious doubts about Hari’s recollection of such an event given his past record, seems convenient but unconvincing. Remember, this is the same book that took until page 176 (!) to announce “We don’t have any long-term studies tracking changes in people’s ability to focus over time”, rendering much of the work a pure speculation. And this book is cited several times. Please refer to the section in Pete Etchell’s book about studies into attention for more nuance.
At least Haidt is circumspect about the impact of technology on boys in chapter 7. But that doesn’t stop him from blaming video games for social disconnection and rise in nihilistic beliefs, circa a cursory reference to Durkheim’s work, in an effort to explain why suicidal ideation is more impactful in girls over boys - with none of the methodological reflection that this work entailed. Given Durkheim’s work on suicide data in Christian France pointed to the problem in keeping accurate records of self harm due to cultural norms regarding spiritual ascendancy (suicide is a sin; denied a Christian funeral), we should be alert to what seems like a cherry picked approach to ideas that fit the author’s thesis while avoiding addressing some of the implications of such an approach. That oversight might be forgiven if the next chapter wasn’t dedicated to the importance of “spirituality”…
What follows is a chapter that is more of a rumination on the decline in social bonds that, obviously, he blames upon technology. Somewhere, I suspect there’s a parallel chain of thought which also points to digital connectedness as the source of this real world fragmentation. It’s possible that what we once thought of as community norms only fit for the vocal in the demos and that a significantly silent proportion of the community didn’t agree with all the norms that supposedly bound us together, yet they went along with them because doing so provided societal benefits. Now, access to alternatives via digitally social connectedness means that similar beliefs can be found outside the geographical community, hence undermining the importance of traditional norms. It seems Haidt likes the argument against modernity though. For him, time and space have become disembodied from the real world, thus meaning dissipates. Structured rituals lose their meaning. I’ll remember that when I have to miss the big game because I have to work this weekend.
And yet… do I think that’s too much screen media at too soon an age is potentially detrimental to young (and old!) people? I’d issue a hesitant yes here. This book makes for alarmist rhetoric: after all Haidt has something to sell and the stance he takes here is probably part of that process. I’m sure he means well. I’m just not sure I think the evidence base he presents is a solid as he claims. Aaron Brown has done a fair job of calling these claims into question, having pointed out that of the 476 studies Haidt mentions in his book, two third of them were published before 2010, and only 22 of them have data on heavy social media use or mental health: none have both. I’d recommend people check that out via Reason TV’s YouTube channel:
https://youtu.be/XoiZ1nqryfk?si=B3GK4...
It opens with a spurious example of kids settling Mars - spoiler: it doesn’t go well as our bodies are not adapted to a different environment, and those future hypothetical settlers of Mars are unlikely to be well adapted to return to Earth. But the drive to achieve something new is often driven by forces which do not have the best intentions for humans at heart. Essentially the thought experiment uses physiognomy as a parallel to social media use, which is dubious at best. The supposed blame being levelled at technology firms for harming children in the opening gambit seems to lack a consideration of any and all forms of regulatory or legal oversights in its rush to make a questionable situation seem far worse than it is.
Does it get much better than this? Not really.
Instead of asking who it was that enabled access to technology, devices and services (surely the domain of parents), the writer goes straight into the blame game, levelling this square at the door of social media site creators, video game makers, and pornographers. Reading this left me baffled. While there are genuine reasons for not wanting kids to spend time engaging with material that’s inappropriate for them, I was perplexed as to how the age limits imposed on these products by third parties and the lack of parental control were seldom mentioned. It’s as if the kids mentioned were able to gorge themselves unrestrained on all-you-can-eat buffet of uncensored digital content. Parental controls have existed since I was a teenager so how come they aren’t being considered, never mind enforced? Is it because that would make for some uncomfortable shifting in blame? At least the conclusion of the book does encourage parents to get acquainted with these tools…
What’s next? Compare social media to tobacco? Lead paint? Yup.
At least he makes some solid claims about displacement activities and sleep deprivation having negative social consequences. These are clearly valid points, and I am broadly sympathetic to the general thesis, but the science of devices and blue-light circadian rhythms’ impact upon sleep are highly disputed when it comes to this line of argumentation (as pointed out by Pete Etchells in his book, Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time). Why not look at, say, diet and concentrations of sugar, caffeine and artificial sweeteners alongside this data? Why not consider how access to digital media has enabled young people to see through the shallow promises of neoliberal precariousness? Nah, it must be the phones.
But then we have the section that is reliant upon Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus - a writer who is not without controversy with regard to integrity. That the same anecdote about a bored and displaced teen gets dragged up a few times to fill the narrative, when many readers will have serious doubts about Hari’s recollection of such an event given his past record, seems convenient but unconvincing. Remember, this is the same book that took until page 176 (!) to announce “We don’t have any long-term studies tracking changes in people’s ability to focus over time”, rendering much of the work a pure speculation. And this book is cited several times. Please refer to the section in Pete Etchell’s book about studies into attention for more nuance.
At least Haidt is circumspect about the impact of technology on boys in chapter 7. But that doesn’t stop him from blaming video games for social disconnection and rise in nihilistic beliefs, circa a cursory reference to Durkheim’s work, in an effort to explain why suicidal ideation is more impactful in girls over boys - with none of the methodological reflection that this work entailed. Given Durkheim’s work on suicide data in Christian France pointed to the problem in keeping accurate records of self harm due to cultural norms regarding spiritual ascendancy (suicide is a sin; denied a Christian funeral), we should be alert to what seems like a cherry picked approach to ideas that fit the author’s thesis while avoiding addressing some of the implications of such an approach. That oversight might be forgiven if the next chapter wasn’t dedicated to the importance of “spirituality”…
What follows is a chapter that is more of a rumination on the decline in social bonds that, obviously, he blames upon technology. Somewhere, I suspect there’s a parallel chain of thought which also points to digital connectedness as the source of this real world fragmentation. It’s possible that what we once thought of as community norms only fit for the vocal in the demos and that a significantly silent proportion of the community didn’t agree with all the norms that supposedly bound us together, yet they went along with them because doing so provided societal benefits. Now, access to alternatives via digitally social connectedness means that similar beliefs can be found outside the geographical community, hence undermining the importance of traditional norms. It seems Haidt likes the argument against modernity though. For him, time and space have become disembodied from the real world, thus meaning dissipates. Structured rituals lose their meaning. I’ll remember that when I have to miss the big game because I have to work this weekend.
And yet… do I think that’s too much screen media at too soon an age is potentially detrimental to young (and old!) people? I’d issue a hesitant yes here. This book makes for alarmist rhetoric: after all Haidt has something to sell and the stance he takes here is probably part of that process. I’m sure he means well. I’m just not sure I think the evidence base he presents is a solid as he claims. Aaron Brown has done a fair job of calling these claims into question, having pointed out that of the 476 studies Haidt mentions in his book, two third of them were published before 2010, and only 22 of them have data on heavy social media use or mental health: none have both. I’d recommend people check that out via Reason TV’s YouTube channel:
https://youtu.be/XoiZ1nqryfk?si=B3GK4...
March 27, 2024
wow this is excellent and made me want to throw my phone out of a window
I am older Gen Z which I think is an interesting demographic because there is clearly a shift (as Haidt describes) that happens in the early 2010s and my age group experienced both - a childhood largely free of social media / screens and an adolescence / teenage years very heavily influenced by social media
this is I think both meticulous and thorough as well as honest about what it is like to grow up with these technologies and platforms (at least honest to my experiences), I have often found writing about social media and youth mental health to veer into the sanctimonious / defensive and this book avoids it
the example of the girl on the Webkinz - Instagram pipeline really got me
I am going to make all of my friends read this
I am older Gen Z which I think is an interesting demographic because there is clearly a shift (as Haidt describes) that happens in the early 2010s and my age group experienced both - a childhood largely free of social media / screens and an adolescence / teenage years very heavily influenced by social media
this is I think both meticulous and thorough as well as honest about what it is like to grow up with these technologies and platforms (at least honest to my experiences), I have often found writing about social media and youth mental health to veer into the sanctimonious / defensive and this book avoids it
the example of the girl on the Webkinz - Instagram pipeline really got me
I am going to make all of my friends read this
June 21, 2024
Haidt continues his years-long trend of intercepting, articulating, and improving whatever I have been thinking most about. For the third time (Coddling of the American Mind and The Righteous Mind being the first two), Haidt delivered to me one of the richest experiences that reading can bring: that feeling of seeing words that have swirled immaterially in your head represented well on paper.
In a nutshell, Haidt articulates the devastating effects of our shift from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood. I won’t dive into the content too much here because I won’t do it justice and you should read the book yourself.
The book isn’t perfect; as with any book tackling such a big issue, Haidt was sure to leave some things unsaid. He also doesn’t exactly share my worldview, so I don’t agree with certain ideas he either states or implies. Nonetheless, this is easily a five-star book for me. I think that it is radically important, and I am a HUGE fan of Haidt’s style. 90% of non-fiction authors I read could benefit massively from a Haidt-taught workshop on how to structure your ideas in a way that makes your book cogent and coherent.
Haidt remains on my Mount Rushmore of modern academics.
In a nutshell, Haidt articulates the devastating effects of our shift from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood. I won’t dive into the content too much here because I won’t do it justice and you should read the book yourself.
The book isn’t perfect; as with any book tackling such a big issue, Haidt was sure to leave some things unsaid. He also doesn’t exactly share my worldview, so I don’t agree with certain ideas he either states or implies. Nonetheless, this is easily a five-star book for me. I think that it is radically important, and I am a HUGE fan of Haidt’s style. 90% of non-fiction authors I read could benefit massively from a Haidt-taught workshop on how to structure your ideas in a way that makes your book cogent and coherent.
Haidt remains on my Mount Rushmore of modern academics.
Currently reading
April 9, 2024As recommended here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...
April 6, 2024
The Anxious Generation defines and analyzes an extremely pressing and pervasive problem that seems to have been overlooked and, if not ignored then at least, underestimated up to this point. Most of the book is dedicated to the presentation of mental health data and, in a lot of ways, a kind of expansion upon Haidt's previous book, The Coddling of the American Mind. This, in my opinion, is a good thing. I admire Haidt's stance on these issues, and he has proven to be a powerful voice and advocate for appropriate levels of adversity and freedom in childhood and adolescence.
The previous book focuses entirely on the real world though. Online, things are very different. The internet can fuck you up if you aren't careful. This fact is even more likely if you happen to be an impressionable child/adolescent. Society seems to have vastly over sheltered young people IRL, and largely left them completely vulnerable and exposed online. Contributing, to insane rises in mental health problems across the board for adolescents. I hope this book reaches a wide audience, because I think it has the power to inspire people towards tangible change. A change that we desperately seem to need if the future generations stand any chance of not being a bunch of cynical balls of anxiety and existential dread.
I can't say that I think anyone will be surprised by the findings of this research. Nor do I think the books proposed solutions to the issue are unreasonable or objectionable in any way. The only problem I can find, is that the proposed 'collective action' propositions, I think, will be extremely difficult given that the generational problems at hand are, by nature, predicated upon a general skepticism and cynicism of their fellow humans. Actionable change on a large scale is fuckin hard. We can do it, and this book makes an incredible case for its necessity. Maybe my own cynicism is shining through with this sentiment, but it seems to me like it's gonna be damn difficult process. But nothing worth doing is ever easy.
The previous book focuses entirely on the real world though. Online, things are very different. The internet can fuck you up if you aren't careful. This fact is even more likely if you happen to be an impressionable child/adolescent. Society seems to have vastly over sheltered young people IRL, and largely left them completely vulnerable and exposed online. Contributing, to insane rises in mental health problems across the board for adolescents. I hope this book reaches a wide audience, because I think it has the power to inspire people towards tangible change. A change that we desperately seem to need if the future generations stand any chance of not being a bunch of cynical balls of anxiety and existential dread.
I can't say that I think anyone will be surprised by the findings of this research. Nor do I think the books proposed solutions to the issue are unreasonable or objectionable in any way. The only problem I can find, is that the proposed 'collective action' propositions, I think, will be extremely difficult given that the generational problems at hand are, by nature, predicated upon a general skepticism and cynicism of their fellow humans. Actionable change on a large scale is fuckin hard. We can do it, and this book makes an incredible case for its necessity. Maybe my own cynicism is shining through with this sentiment, but it seems to me like it's gonna be damn difficult process. But nothing worth doing is ever easy.
June 19, 2024
Essential reading for anyone raising or teaching children in the digital age—urgent yet hopeful.
June 5, 2024
I finished this a few days ago, but just never got around to writing a review.
I like Haidt a lot, and I believe a lot of his work aims to take on large problems in an earnest and benevolent way, using data when available and common sense where necessary. This book is similar in that vein, but left me somewhat underwhelmed.
To be clear, I do think Haidt is on to something with his larger argument. The declining trends in mental health are undeniable, and they do seem to coincide with the rise of cell phones/social media that Haidt alludes to in this book. I’m somewhat sympathetic to the critics of this book that a lot of what he cites in the book is merely correlational, but YOU go ahead and try to get a randomized study by an IRB in this vein and tell me how far you get. I also give kudos to Haidt for trying to collect a lot of his evidence in a really public way (see the Google docs), and feel like he’s tried to be transparent about conclusions we just can’t be certain about yet.
But my biggest gripe with this book is that the argument just needs a lot of tightening. Haidt cites a lot of other people’s work and his efforts at synthesizing it all fell sort of flat for me. Like is the cause of all this anxiety social media (specifically)? Cell phones (generally)? Parenting styles? All of the above? I feel like the book throws all of these explanations at me, and I feel like each one sounds reasonable enough, but none of them struck me as being individually convincing causal mechanisms for the downstream side effects. Collectively, I didn’t feel like they were weaved together in a coherent enough way either.
As I said before, I think Haidt is certainly on to something here. The trends he identifies are certainly problematic and I’m glad somebody is sounding the alarm bells. The solutions (“new norms”) he proposes all seem like smart ideas, even if they are somewhat wishful thinking. I’m just not sure he’s really nailed down the cause yet. It’s like he’s a doctor who’s identified some troubling symptoms, prescribed some cures that seem promising, but still hasn’t diagnosed the root disease. Maybe I’m being an unfair critic and forcing Haidt into simplifying an inevitably complex topic. But that’s how this thing felt to me.
I like Haidt a lot, and I believe a lot of his work aims to take on large problems in an earnest and benevolent way, using data when available and common sense where necessary. This book is similar in that vein, but left me somewhat underwhelmed.
To be clear, I do think Haidt is on to something with his larger argument. The declining trends in mental health are undeniable, and they do seem to coincide with the rise of cell phones/social media that Haidt alludes to in this book. I’m somewhat sympathetic to the critics of this book that a lot of what he cites in the book is merely correlational, but YOU go ahead and try to get a randomized study by an IRB in this vein and tell me how far you get. I also give kudos to Haidt for trying to collect a lot of his evidence in a really public way (see the Google docs), and feel like he’s tried to be transparent about conclusions we just can’t be certain about yet.
But my biggest gripe with this book is that the argument just needs a lot of tightening. Haidt cites a lot of other people’s work and his efforts at synthesizing it all fell sort of flat for me. Like is the cause of all this anxiety social media (specifically)? Cell phones (generally)? Parenting styles? All of the above? I feel like the book throws all of these explanations at me, and I feel like each one sounds reasonable enough, but none of them struck me as being individually convincing causal mechanisms for the downstream side effects. Collectively, I didn’t feel like they were weaved together in a coherent enough way either.
As I said before, I think Haidt is certainly on to something here. The trends he identifies are certainly problematic and I’m glad somebody is sounding the alarm bells. The solutions (“new norms”) he proposes all seem like smart ideas, even if they are somewhat wishful thinking. I’m just not sure he’s really nailed down the cause yet. It’s like he’s a doctor who’s identified some troubling symptoms, prescribed some cures that seem promising, but still hasn’t diagnosed the root disease. Maybe I’m being an unfair critic and forcing Haidt into simplifying an inevitably complex topic. But that’s how this thing felt to me.
June 10, 2024
A great book that addresses some serious problems with “kids these days,” and actually proposes several very reasonable action points. I’d venture to say this book is going to be discussed a lot over the next few years, so I’d recommend that you just go ahead and read it now.
His thesis can be summarized as this: American parents are overprotecting their children in the real world, while providing virtually no protection from the dangers in the online world. And this leads to increased rates of anxiety and depression in girls, and withdrawal and “failure to launch” problems in boys.
The scientific data showing the psychological harms caused by social media use for young girls is solid and convincing. Haidt admits that the studies are not nearly as conclusive when evaluating the potential harms of video game use & etc in young boys.
I also think he makes some excellent points about how our protective parenting styles and our fear of potential physical harms stunt the normal growths of our kids. We just don’t let our kids play with each other in real life anymore, but play is necessary for the proper development of children. This advice seem intuitively correct but he doesn’t supply as much research to back up these claims as he does for the technology side of his thesis. Nevertheless, I suspect he’s right.
Bob wrote a great review (as usual):
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Here are a few other good reviews I’d like to save. Wick’s review is helpful, but he disagrees with Haidt about the parenting side of the argument. I think Haidt is right though.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
His thesis can be summarized as this: American parents are overprotecting their children in the real world, while providing virtually no protection from the dangers in the online world. And this leads to increased rates of anxiety and depression in girls, and withdrawal and “failure to launch” problems in boys.
The scientific data showing the psychological harms caused by social media use for young girls is solid and convincing. Haidt admits that the studies are not nearly as conclusive when evaluating the potential harms of video game use & etc in young boys.
I also think he makes some excellent points about how our protective parenting styles and our fear of potential physical harms stunt the normal growths of our kids. We just don’t let our kids play with each other in real life anymore, but play is necessary for the proper development of children. This advice seem intuitively correct but he doesn’t supply as much research to back up these claims as he does for the technology side of his thesis. Nevertheless, I suspect he’s right.
Bob wrote a great review (as usual):
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Here are a few other good reviews I’d like to save. Wick’s review is helpful, but he disagrees with Haidt about the parenting side of the argument. I think Haidt is right though.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
May 18, 2024
Uniquely bad — Haidt repeatedly notes that what you do is more important than what you say and then also admits he follows none of his advice in practice. Someone needs to tell him that acknowledging a counterargument with one sentence isn’t the same as refuting it. Such a privileged perspective and absolutely no acknowledgement of this and also not even a relevant perspective since he didn’t grow up with social media or experience any of this firsthand. Some interesting points about tracking your kid that I agree with, but once again points that the author himself doesn’t even follow.
April 7, 2024
My criteria for giving a book a 5 star rating is that is has to have changed me in some way. This book did. I have an intellectual crush on Jonathon Haidt and if he writes it I read it. Although the book is data heavy and even a little cumbersome at times, it’s worth getting through. Everyone should probably read this book, especially if you are a parent. I wish this book had existed 10 years ago. I would have done many things differently. My poor little 17 year old daughter is going to be the reluctant beneficiary of the knowledge and insights gained from this book. Everyone pray for her.
May 22, 2024
I remember first stumbling upon Jon Haidt in 2015. His essay with Greg Lukianoff "How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus" had just appeared in The Atlantic. The ideas in this essay culminated in a book in 2018, The Coddling of the American Mind. I even attended one of the guest lectures associated with his book tour. I mention these things to try and highlight that Haidt's work has been meaningful to me. I understand that his scholarship and ideas are not without flaws, but he's contributed substantially as a public intellectual, improving the tenor of our discourse.
Haidt's work, even going back to The Righteous Mind (2013) has contributed meaningfully to the archaeology of the rampant discourse derangement of the 2010s. Our vocabulary for what is essentially a bundle of related phenomena has evolved dramatically overtime due to euphemism tread-milling and term co-optation. Regardless, Haidt has been focused on pulling our attention back to the things that matter, such as being embodied social creatures guided by tried-and-true wisdom - often of the variety that recognizes our evolved natures.
I remember it being a revelation to read Haidt's work and hear his lectures. Seeing an unimpeachably left-liberal and esteemed academic calling attention to issues that I felt were being ignored or downplayed by mainstream discourse. Perhaps these issues seemed more pressing to me than everyday Americans because I was at college in the 2010s, ground-zero of the dysfunction. I nonetheless couldn't shake the sentiment that a sea change in thinking was happening under our feet and no one except those kept on the margins or prone to outright crankery noticed. I was genuinely disturbed that so few mainstream and elite voices were noticing the dramatic changes in rhetorical tactics and the new radical content of beliefs colonizing the discourse of social tastemakers and young people. Today, I think my concerns were perhaps too intense. I should have had some sense for the inevitable reaction, over-correction, and the eventual slow reset to the American norm (albeit one a bit crazier). However, we are far from out-of-the-woods and I think Haidt has some helpful ideas to offer.
The Anxious Generation explores the effects of app-based social technologies and super-sensory stimuli on vulnerable minds in our recent past. In other words, it is a look at what Instagram, Snapchat, and Tik Tok have done to Gen-Z girls and what immersive gaming and porn have done to Gen-Z boys. Haidt's evidence is a bit clearer with the former story. In my casual reading, there does seem to be a modest but meaningful uptick in internalizing disorders (anxiety, depression, etc) that are likely in someway downstream of how technological change has rewired and restructured youth socialization. There is an academic debate about whether there is actually an increase in mental health issues, whether the alleged relationship between certain tech and mental health is more than mere correlation, and if conceding both, whether the alleged effect is actually meaningful. Again, I am disposed to thinking there is something going on, but these things are really hard to pin down in ways that are scientifically satisfying and of practical use. Because even if we accept all three of Haidt's claims, the question is still open whether viable solutions can be found.
Now, Haidt has some proposed solutions of course. Some are quite common sense and unobjectionable (no smartphone in class at school and whatnot), while other may invite government intervention (data tracking policies, age verification, etc) that is probably unwise to invite.
Considering these things, there aren't a lot of new action items or urgency that I feel after reading this. I do plan to try provide experiences in my children that will make them resilient and capable social actors. This will include self-discipline when it comes to use of various technologies and attempts to avoid coddling. I also am optimistic we can improve our social, emotional, and physical metric in America with certain institutional fixes. Some of these certainly overlap with Haidt's recommendations.
Site where Haidt compile evidence:
https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/res...
Haidt's work, even going back to The Righteous Mind (2013) has contributed meaningfully to the archaeology of the rampant discourse derangement of the 2010s. Our vocabulary for what is essentially a bundle of related phenomena has evolved dramatically overtime due to euphemism tread-milling and term co-optation. Regardless, Haidt has been focused on pulling our attention back to the things that matter, such as being embodied social creatures guided by tried-and-true wisdom - often of the variety that recognizes our evolved natures.
I remember it being a revelation to read Haidt's work and hear his lectures. Seeing an unimpeachably left-liberal and esteemed academic calling attention to issues that I felt were being ignored or downplayed by mainstream discourse. Perhaps these issues seemed more pressing to me than everyday Americans because I was at college in the 2010s, ground-zero of the dysfunction. I nonetheless couldn't shake the sentiment that a sea change in thinking was happening under our feet and no one except those kept on the margins or prone to outright crankery noticed. I was genuinely disturbed that so few mainstream and elite voices were noticing the dramatic changes in rhetorical tactics and the new radical content of beliefs colonizing the discourse of social tastemakers and young people. Today, I think my concerns were perhaps too intense. I should have had some sense for the inevitable reaction, over-correction, and the eventual slow reset to the American norm (albeit one a bit crazier). However, we are far from out-of-the-woods and I think Haidt has some helpful ideas to offer.
The Anxious Generation explores the effects of app-based social technologies and super-sensory stimuli on vulnerable minds in our recent past. In other words, it is a look at what Instagram, Snapchat, and Tik Tok have done to Gen-Z girls and what immersive gaming and porn have done to Gen-Z boys. Haidt's evidence is a bit clearer with the former story. In my casual reading, there does seem to be a modest but meaningful uptick in internalizing disorders (anxiety, depression, etc) that are likely in someway downstream of how technological change has rewired and restructured youth socialization. There is an academic debate about whether there is actually an increase in mental health issues, whether the alleged relationship between certain tech and mental health is more than mere correlation, and if conceding both, whether the alleged effect is actually meaningful. Again, I am disposed to thinking there is something going on, but these things are really hard to pin down in ways that are scientifically satisfying and of practical use. Because even if we accept all three of Haidt's claims, the question is still open whether viable solutions can be found.
Now, Haidt has some proposed solutions of course. Some are quite common sense and unobjectionable (no smartphone in class at school and whatnot), while other may invite government intervention (data tracking policies, age verification, etc) that is probably unwise to invite.
Considering these things, there aren't a lot of new action items or urgency that I feel after reading this. I do plan to try provide experiences in my children that will make them resilient and capable social actors. This will include self-discipline when it comes to use of various technologies and attempts to avoid coddling. I also am optimistic we can improve our social, emotional, and physical metric in America with certain institutional fixes. Some of these certainly overlap with Haidt's recommendations.
Site where Haidt compile evidence:
https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/res...
June 13, 2024
4.5 stars rounded up!
This is an absolute MUST read for all parents and professionals that work with children and adolescents. I have already started recommending this to everyone. Watch out if you are around me lately because chances are I will mention this book to you!
This is an absolute MUST read for all parents and professionals that work with children and adolescents. I have already started recommending this to everyone. Watch out if you are around me lately because chances are I will mention this book to you!
April 2, 2024
“Haidt is a gifted storyteller, but his tale is currently one searching for evidence”. https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...
April 24, 2024
Everyone needs to read this book! It’s as important as it is timely. It discusses how we’ve gone from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood and it’s completely rewiring our children’s brains. I appreciated the recent data to indicate what a drastic effect social media has had on young minds. There is lot of hope and a real call to action in this book—I especially liked the evidence-based guidelines for when to get a phone and when to get social media (14 and 16 at the earliest, respectively). Nice to have actual data to guide our decisions with our kids.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,636 reviews