SOCIETY
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness Jonathan Haidt
Allen Lane, $36.99
Around 2007, two significant events occurred. First, the rise of the smartphone and social media. Within a few years, iPhones and Android phones became ubiquitous, and platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter exploded into popularity. The second development was a noticeable decline in youth mental health. Across advanced countries, rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide worsened, especially among girls.
Is there a connection between these two developments? In The Anxious Generation, New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt makes the strongest case yet that smartphones and social media are doing massive harm to the mental wellbeing of young people. Like Jean Twenge’s iGen and Netflix’s The Social Dilemma, this is an urgent call to action, from a writer who regards social media as more akin to tobacco than fairy floss.
Jonathan Haidt’s book argues that smartphones and social media are doing massive harm to the mental wellbeing of young people.Credit:
What’s the evidence? Over the past 15 or so years, the use of smartphones and social media has skyrocketed. The average young American receives 192 social media notifications daily. Nearly half of US teens say they are online “almost constantly”. Device use has displaced in-person activities. Young US teens are increasingly unlikely to have a part-time job or a driving licence.
The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.
The mental health crisis is similarly dramatic. Since 2007-2010, rates of anxiety and depression among young people in the US have doubled. More than one-third of US university students report feeling anxious “most of the time”. Among teen girls, rates of self-harm have doubled.
Haidt argues that social media’s impact has been most pronounced among girls because they use the platforms more, and because girls tend to be more susceptible to social comparisons. In a society that judges young women based on their appearance, Instagram filters set an impossible standard, leaving many girls feeling anxious and depressed.
The teen mental health crisis isn’t only a US phenomenon. Haidt presents evidence from various advanced nations, including Canada, Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The “great rewiring of childhood” affected teens across the globe.
The Anxious Generation includes some evidence for Australia, but as I read it, I grew more curious about the extent to which the worsening of teen mental health had occurred here. That prompted me to delve into the data, to see what kind of picture it painted about the mental wellbeing of young Australians.
