Part One: Anxious Generation (Book Recs)

You may have heard the buzz surrounding the new book, The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. In this book, he warns about the dangers of our children having phone-based childhoods instead of the play-based and even outside-based childhoods we were all (hopefully) raised with. He talks about why so many kids are not doing well, the rise in anxiety, and the mental health crisis in adolescents. He also talks about how as parents, we have overprotected our children in the real world and yet underprotected them in the digital world. He gives so many examples of this last point.

Mr. Haidt makes many excellent examples, telling us how we have arrived at this point of a mental health crisis between technology and the next generation we are currently raising. His main points can be summarized into four distinct categories. The categories he outlines are what he calls the four foundational harms of having a “phone-based childhood.”

These are:

• social deprivation [not spending enough time with friends face-to-face]
• sleep deprivation [lack of sleep leading to depression, anxiety, irritability, lower grades]
• attention fragmentation [smartphones constantly interrupting us]
• addiction [always seeking a dopamine hit].

When describing the issue of a phone-based childhood, Haidt says: “Just as the immune system must be exposed to germs, and trees must be exposed to wind, children require exposure to setbacks, failures, shocks, and setbacks, failures, shocks, and tubes to develop strength and self-reliance.” We can’t learn to function in the real world without growing up and engaging with the real world.

As a counselor working with adolescents, I see these issues up front and personally daily in my office. As a mom of four kids, one of whom is a middle schooler, I see these issues up front personally in my own home. The struggle with technology is very real and something that we need to engage with and not ignore. It is something that we have to be not just aware of, but actively pushing against, unless we want culture to consume us and our children. Mr. Haidt also addresses how children need play and how the lack of play has caused a great rewiring of childhood.

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