Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation. Penguin Press, 2024.
The absence of embodied experiences stunts learning. Whether it is the child whose hand gets too close to the fire while roasting marshmallows or the student who manually regroups manipulatives during an addition problem in math class, humans learn more deeply when concrete, embodied experience is part of the lesson. In The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt doubles down on this truth in the context of children’s natural social development. To become healthy adult humans, children need embodied social experiences at critical moments in their initial stages of formation, extending well into adolescence. Yet, these essential experiences are blocked, not only by 24-hour access to internet and social media through smartphones, but also by excessive supervision in the real world. According to Haidt, this one-two punch has drastically “rewired” childhood, contributing to the persistent and ongoing decline in mental health indicators for adolescents.
Expanding upon data compiled for his earlier work, The Coddling of the American Mind, Haidt begins his argument by describing the increasingly alarming statistics about adolescent mental health for both girls and boys. These trends persist not only in the United States but also in other English-speaking countries. Starting in 2010, self-reported measures of mental illness (e.g., depression and anxiety) in adolescents, statistics on hospital visits for self-harm, and suicide rates for that age group rose dramatically and continue to increase. Haidt also compares these mental health indicators across different generations (e.g., millennials, Gen X, etc.) to demonstrate that—whatever the cause—it afflicts adolescents in Gen Z most acutely.
After delineating the current state of adolescent mental health, Haidt delves into his narrative explaining its source, by describing the decline of the play-based childhood and the rise of the phone-based childhood. Children naturally develop a wide range of important social skills (e.g., attunement, synchrony, turn-taking, culturally appropriate manners, et al.) through free play and other types of engagement in the real world. Disruption to this natural process began, according to Haidt, with changes in parental behavior resulting from the rise of ‘safetyism’ (i.e., the prioritization of safety above all other considerations of well-being) in the 1990s. As a result, children experienced dramatic restrictions on free play and real-world engagement over a decade before the release of the smartphone. Limiting these embodied social learning experiences creates a significant hurdle for healthy social development, particularly in puberty, when the developing brain (undergoing neural pruning and myelination) is more vulnerable to stressors and more easily impacted by change. With the arrival of the internet, and eventually smartphones, these negative effects are further exacerbated because those technologies “reduce interest in all non-screen-based forms of experience” (99).
In addition to interfering as a second experience blocker in the natural process of social development, Haidt identifies “four fundamental harms” of smartphones: sleep deprivation, social deprivation, attention fragmentation, and digital addiction. Additionally, Haidt demonstrates that the effects of this shift from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood manifest at different ages and in distinct ways for girls and for boys. Before pivoting toward solutions, Haidt makes a final claim that humans are uplifted by viewing morally beautiful actions and diminished by morally degrading experiences. As such, the deep yearning for meaning, connection and spiritual elevation are not often (never?) satiated by the trivial, disembodied, and often devaluing content typical of social media. Therefore, in addition to the harm caused by a phone-based childhood through exposure to questionable content, smartphones, social media, and related technological developments are incapable of allowing children to encounter the best experiences of human life.
Perhaps you have experienced the reticence of parents, educators, school leaders or politicians to address the problems of cell phones in school or the addictive qualities of social media because, as the adage says, “There’s no way to put the toothpaste back in the tube.” Moreover, peer pressure to have a phone or to be on TikTok is often insurmountable for children, especially in middle school. These common occurrences are evidence of a social dilemma, which—Haidt explains—requires a collective solution. The normalization of a phone-based childhood can be reversed through cooperative efforts by legislators, schools, and parents. Legislators should require warning labels for social media sites and enforce the use of appropriate age-verification techniques. Schools should ban cell phone use during the school day and provide specialized lockers for cell phones. Collaborative efforts by parents within a community can ease pressure to be online, provide opportunities for reversing adverse mental health outcomes for Gen Z, and restore a play-based childhood for future generations. Haidt recommends creating a pact among families that children will not receive a smartphone before high school—and that families commit to hosting other activities that will provide real world engagement and social interaction.
These remedies for improving adolescent mental health are possible, but they require collective effort and strong community bonds, the destruction of which led to the erosion of a play-based childhood in the first place. Is the evidence strong enough and the crisis severe enough to regenerate these important social connections? Haidt believes it is and I—as an educator with firsthand experience of the devastation wrought by phone-based childhood upon students’ social, intellectual, and spiritual formation—am compelled to agree.
Real world experience is an indispensable part of human learning and development. In The Anxious Generation, Haidt presents a compelling narrative about the nature of childhood, uplifts the vital role of embodied social experience in natural development, and identifies some low-cost remedies that might restore adolescent mental health. I strongly encourage you to read the book and consider whether Haidt’s theory on the rewiring of childhood resonates with the lived experience of your community or school. And, if Haidt’s theory is correct, you will need the evidence he gathered to convince others to join in collective action that might free young minds from the shackles of 24-hour internet access to enjoy the risk and reward of growing up in the real world.
Krystyn Schmerbeck is the Director of Graduate Programs in Classical Education at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. After studying Classical Languages and Philosophy as an undergraduate student, Krystyn ventured into public policy and eventually the religious life before discovering her vocation as a Catholic educator. Over the past twelve years, Krystyn has served as teacher, principal, and instructional coach in both diocesan and classical schools. Krystyn holds a master’s degree in public policy from George Washington University, a master’s degree in Catholic School Leadership from Marymount University in Virginia and is currently enrolled in doctoral studies at the University of St. Thomas University in Houston, Texas.