Rob's Reviews > The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness

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...