The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Creating an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt is a self-help book published in 2024. In recent years, anxiety,…
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Creating an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt is a self-help book published in 2024.
In recent years, anxiety, depression, and mental health struggles have surged among teens and young adults. But what’s really driving this crisis?
In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt makes a compelling case that the rise of smartphones and social media, particularly around 2010, triggered a massive shift in how young people grow up — and not for the better. Haidt’s book dives into the data, the psychology, and the cultural changes behind the mental health epidemic plaguing Gen Z.
The Great Rewiring of Childhood
- Rise of adolescent mental illness (2010-2015)
- Teens shifted social lives to smartphones and internet platforms
- “Great Rewiring” coincides with rise in anxiety, depression, self-harm
- Post-2012 increase in school alienation in Western countries
- Gen Z = first cohort to go through puberty with smartphones
- Similar patterns in: U.K., Canada, Australia, Nordic countries
- Gender & age-specific impacts
- Girls, especially preteens, most severely affected
- Boys also saw increases in anxiety and depression
- Tech-use and mental health patterns differ
- No competing theory explains the shift
- Timeline (post-2010)
- Global scale
- Age specificity (adolescents)
Childhood as a Critical Period
- Human childhood is unique
- Brain reaches ~90% size by age 5, but continues configuring for years
- Childhood is built for cultural learning via imitation, exploration, play
- Free play is essential for social skills and physical/emotional resilience
- Social media/internet use is asynchronous and performative
- Poor substitute for real-world attunement
- Social media hijacks social learning systems
- Children are wired with conformist bias & prestige bias
- Social media amplifies low-value or unhealthy role models
- Overriding family and community norms
- Sensitive period of cultural imprinting
- Ages 9-15 are critical for identity formation
- Lessons here are more likely to stick long-term
- Coincides with: first smartphone use, social lives moving online
From Discover Mode to Defend Mode
- Two brain modes – Discover (curious, open to explore) vs Defend (threat monitoring)
- Earlier generations are more Discover mode
- Defend mindset is more common among young people today
- Over protection removes essential challenges and weakens resilience
- Kids naturally grow stronger from stressors & small failures
- Risky physical play reduces phobias & builds strength
- Online risks do not provide the same resilience-building growth
Safetyism and Fearful Parenting
- Since 1980s-90s, parenting is increasingly fearful due to:
- Sensationalist media
- Lower community trust
- Increased adult supervision
- Physical oversight up, but digital oversight is almost nonexistent
- Safetyism = belief that safety outweighs all other values
- Consequences: reduced risk-taking, weaker coping skills overreliance on intervention
The Bottom Line
- Children thrive through real-world, play-based childhoods
- Phone-based, safety-obsessed childhoods:
- Limit growth
- Foster anxiety and fragility
- If we want stronger, healthier kids:
- Encourage free play
- Loosen the grip of smartphones and social media
- Reclaim the offline world for childhood development
