Jonathan Haidt attributes the epidemic of mental illness in teenagers to the rewiring of childhood.
Smartphones
In the summer of 2022, Haidt was working on a book project about how smartphones and social media rewired many societies in the 2010s. The first chapter was about the impact of social media on kids, who were the “canaries in the coal mine,” revealing early signs that something was going wrong. When adolescents’ social lives moved onto smartphones and social media platforms, anxiety and depression surged among them.
He says he “quickly realized that the rapid decline of adolescent mental health could not be explained in one chapter—it needed a book of its own, The Anxious Generation.”
Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis (2006) and of the New York Times bestsellers The Righteous Mind (2012) and The Coddling of the American Mind (2018) Since 2018 he has been studying the contributions of social media to the decline of teen mental health. He is the co-developer of Moral Foundations Theory, and of the research site YourMorals.org.
Banning Smartphones in Schools
Haidt’s research touched off a firestorm in public education. His book was published on March 26, 2024 and within months the content became the argument for the case of banning smart phones from public schools made by American governors and Canadian provincial politicians. In September 2024, almost every Canadian province rolled out new restrictions in schools on cell phone use.
He began The Anxious Generation by examining adolescent mental health trends. What happened to young people in the early 2010s that triggered the surge of anxiety and depression around 2012? There was a stark, statistical rise in the decline of mental health in youths, and especially teenage girls, around the world.
The Anxious Generation offers an explanation by telling two stories. The first is about the decline of the play-based childhood. The second story is about the rise of the phone-based childhood, which began in the late 2000s and accelerated in the early 2010s. This was precisely the period during which adolescents traded in their flip phones for smartphones, which were loaded with social media platforms supported by the new high-speed internet and unlimited data plans. 
Rewiring of Childhood
The confluence of these two stories in the years between 2010 and 2015 is what Haidt calls the “Great Rewiring of Childhood.” To give Haidt credit, he posted a whole host of Collaborative Review Docs on the research literature in February 2024.
One of Haidt’s darkest quotes is from the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy:
“Adolescents who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media face 2x the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms. And the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer of 2023, was 4.8 hours per day.”
When I read the book over Christmas, I was gripped by some of the research and studies shared in the first three chapters. I’ve got skin in the game, being a grandfather of five. Our eldest granddaughter is 13 and is the envied owner of the first iPhone among her siblings and cousins.
Screenshots from the book on suicide rates and the amount of in-person, outside school play..
Suggestions
Haidt’s work did not go unchallenged. Critics argue that some of his conclusions oversimplify complex issues, while others believe his emphasis on resilience and free play minimizes the legitimate struggles faced by today’s youth.
Haidt says, his five most important suggestions are:
- Give children far more time playing with other children. This play should ideally be outdoors, in mixed age groups, with little or no adult supervision.
- Look for more ways to embed children in stable real-world communities. Online networks are not nearly as binding or satisfying.
- Don’t give a smartphone as the first phone. Give a phone or watch that is specialized for communication, not for internet-based apps.
- Don’t give a smartphone until high school.
- Delay the opening of accounts on nearly all social media platforms until the beginning of high school (at least).
Reaction
It’s easy to have an initial emotional reaction when you read this book and see some of the data. However, if you haven’t seen that data, buy the book and have a look at Haidt’s research data on social media.
We’d love to hear what you think if you’ve read the book or if your have teenagers and share your experience with phones and social media.
Please join the conversation and post a comment below. Thank you.
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