The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

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Book Review of The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

Today I am reviewing The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. I have a lot to say about this book! I’m not the perfect parent or teacher, but I did feel validated in many of my feelings and actions when I read it. Children and early teens with smart phones and on social media has always been one of my soapbox issues so yay, I get to stand on my soapbox today and feel a little validation. Don’t worry, though, there are also issues in this book that do not shine the best light on my parenting or teaching style, so we can all learn and improve together.

Blurb:

THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Book of 2024 • A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book • One of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2024 • A TIME 100 Must-Read Book of 2024 • Named a Best Book of 2024 by the Economist, the New York Post, and Town & Country • The Goodreads Choice Award Nonfiction Book of the Year • Finalist for the PEN Literary Awards

A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

“With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.” —Shannon Carlin, TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

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.

My Book Review:

I am so glad someone wrote this book! As a parent of four children, three of whom are adults now, and a teacher, I know how much this book is needed. I am a little late to the party, but in my defense, I’ve had it on hold at the library for a very long time! There’s a long waiting list!

It took me awhile to get through this book because the beginning is very research-heavy, and I took my time studying the charts and diagrams. I intuitively knew much of the information, but I was interested in learning more about the research he did.

When reading The Anxious Generation, you can tell how much time and effort Haidt put into his research. The book is well written, has a lot of research, and has some good examples. I liked the format of the book. I agree with almost everything he says.

I agree with his technology and social media guidelines. The phone rule at our house for our four children was that they started with a flip phone in 8^th grade, with limited texts and phone calls per month (no internet or apps). If they took care of it and didn’t go over their allotted minutes then they could get a smart phone the summer before they went to high school, which is 10^th grade where we live. Phones were required to be turned into me each night before bed, and they were locked so they could not be used even if the kids snuck into my room and tried to use them.

With the smart phone came certain parent-approved apps, but no internet availability, and no ability to download apps without parental permission. They also did not get any social media. The reason we did that was because I intuitively knew social media would not be good for them. On top of the normal reasons, we have a few children with mental health struggles, and I knew it would NOT be good for them, especially.

My rules are actually stricter than what Jonathan Haidt specifies in this book, but they worked for us. When my kids graduated from high school and were adults then I allowed them to get social media and took off all the parental controls.

As a teacher, I had many students struggle with distraction from phones. I taught sixth grade, and we had students sending inappropriate pictures to “cute boys in Ohio,” (uhhuh) students coming to school exhausted because they were playing video games or texting each other until the wee hours of the morning, and students prank calling the office during recess. So many problems would be prevented if stricter phone rules were in place at school.

I have heard a little bit over the years about play time being learning time. I found that piece of the book very interesting. I’m actually going back to the classroom this fall as a fourth grade teacher (I’m so excited!) and will be spending time learning and researching the play piece. His argument seems quite compelling and I’d like to know more about it.

The one thing I’ll say that is not quite in step with Haidt’s hypothesis is that I have had two children suffer severe mental health crises in their 9-10^th grade years of school. Neither one of them had a smartphone or social media at the time. It’s just my experience, but I’m not 100% sure that the smartphones or social media accounts are the complete driver behind the mental health crisis in youth. I don’t doubt that they have a lot to do with it, but in my experience, youth are experiencing deteriorating mental health even without them.

Overall, I think every parent and teacher should read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt and at least hear his hypothesis, research, and conclusions. If we all work together I think we can find solutions to help our children thrive.