Haidt asks a simple question: Why is the mental health of Gen Z the worst in history? Finding the answer to this question caused Haidt to dig deep into various areas. His book, The Anxious Generation, explores two interconnected causes. He contends play based childhood has been replaced by phone-based childhood.
The book is divided into four parts. The first, uses data to show the mental health of young people is in horrible shape. The next section explores how the decline in play-based childhood deprives kids from gaining the necessary skills to become successful adults. Section three shows the damage caused by a childhood spent on phones and social media. Lastly, Haidt gives suggestions to parents, schools, and even the government as to how to rectify these problems.
The Decline of Play-Based Childhood
The first overarching issue Haidt addresses is how play-based childhood has virtually disappeared. Children need unsupervised play time. Free play allows children to challenge themselves, face fears, expand their limits, learn how to build friendships. Most parents want their children to be resilient and well adjusted, but these skills are virtually impossible to develop if children are micro-managed constantly.
Phone Based Childhood
Haidt’s second main point is obvious if you look around and see most teens and young people staring at their phones. Social media is the elephant in the room and few people are brave enough to discuss it. It has altered every aspect of most people’s lives. Even if you are not on social media, people you know are. Like smoking and white sugar, everyone knows social media is bad for you, but most people enjoy it too much to quit or don’t know how.
The Great Rewiring
These two mighty rivers converge in the “Great Rewiring” as Haidt calls it. Between 2010 and 2015, according to Haidt, smartphones and social media addicted children to electronic devises faster than parents knew how to address. The result is that “we ended up overprotecting children in the real world while underpotting them in the virtual world.”
Solutions
Haidt offers a number of suggestions and solutions for parents, schools, and governments. While he acknowledges this is not an exhaustive list, it does give some guidance. Here are some of his ideas:
- Encourage children to play outside, freely with friends.
- No smartphones until high school.
- No social media until 16.
- Phone free schools.
Besides the elephant metaphor, the most appropriate illustration of the social media problem is the story of the Emperor Wears No Clothes. Thankfully, Haidt and others have begun declaring there is a giant elephant in the way and the emperor riding him is naked.
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