I recently finished reading Haidt’s, “The Anxious Generation”. I was curious about this book as I have struggled to help my teenager with their depression. I am fascinated how their older sister (six years apart) had such a different experience in her teenage years than my younger child. Haidt makes some compelling arguments supported with a ton of data and research. The book’s website also offers additional data and research.

Haidt gives some reasons for depression including:

• Genes-predisposed to depression
• Thought patterns (can be learned and unlearned)
• Social and environmental conditions

But he contends that the biggest difference is how society is focused on a “phone-based childhood vs play- based childhood”. Essentially playing outside and with friends has been replaced with the virtual world. I have definitely seen this difference between my two kids. Another dramatic difference is how parents are overprotective in real life and under protected online.

Haidt explains that the prevailing wisdom of parents today is that kids need to be supervised constantly and parents should not let their kids roam independently like we did when we were children. There is no longer the mantra of “come home when it gets dark.” And laws are even in place to report parents that are seemingly being irresponsible by allowing their kids some freedom. Essentially we have created so many guardrails kids do not experience any hardship or failure which in turn prevents them from developing resilience and grit.

Our phone-based culture has created four harms:

• #1: Social deprivation -kids are connected to everyone in the world and disconnected from the people around them.
• #2: Sleep deprivation-there has been tons of research on how our devices disrupt our sleeping patterns.
• #3: Attention fragmentation-notifications and disruptions happen constantly which leaves us with about five minutes to focus on any task or though before we are interrupted once again.
• #4: Addiction- “The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for the wired generation”.

This book, its message and all the thorough research really resonated with me. I do agree with Haidt that if we as a society do not address the negative effects of social media and the virtual world, we will create a very different, fragmented world that what we have enjoyed thus far. Certainly putting down the phones, getting out in nature and making more time for real play for our kids can make a difference if we all lean in and make it happen.