The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

Haidt examines the distinct impact of social media on girls compared to boys. He starts with the story of Alexis Spence, who received her first iPad at age 10 and soon fell into the harmful cycle of social media, specifically Instagram. Despite her parents’ efforts to monitor and restrict her usage, Alexis found ways to bypass these controls, leading to a decline in her mental health, culminating in anorexia and depression.

Social Media’s Disproportionate Impact on Girls

The early 2010s marked a significant shift, with a sharp rise in digital activities and related harms such as social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. Psychiatric wards began filling disproportionately with girls around 2013, indicating a unique vulnerability.

Evidence of Harm

Numerous studies indicate that social media negatively affects girls more than boys. Girls who spend extensive time on social media platforms like Instagram are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. Correlational studies show a strong link between heavy social media use and poor mental health in girls, with the most significant effects observed in those who spend more than five hours a day on social media.

Reasons for Greater Harm in Girls

Haidt outlines four main reasons why social media is particularly harmful to girls:

Visual Social Comparison and Perfectionism: Girls are more susceptible to visual social comparisons, leading to increased body dissatisfaction and socially prescribed perfectionism. Platforms like Instagram amplify these tendencies by presenting idealized images, causing girls to feel inadequate and anxious.

Relational Aggression: Girls tend to express aggression through damaging relationships and reputations rather than physical means. Social media provides ample opportunities for relational aggression, such as gossip, exclusion, and cyberbullying, which significantly impact girls’ mental health.

Emotional Sharing and Contagion: Girls are more likely to share and be affected by others’ emotions. This makes negative emotions like anxiety and depression more contagious among girls, leading to higher rates of these conditions within their social networks.

Predation and Harassment: Girls are more frequently targeted by online predators and face higher levels of sexual harassment. The pressure to share intimate images and the subsequent risks of these images being misused contribute to heightened anxiety and distress among girls.

Group-Level Effects

Haidt notes that social media’s impact extends beyond individual users to affect entire social groups. The widespread use of social media changes group dynamics, reducing face-to-face interactions and weakening social bonds. This collective shift exacerbates the mental health crisis among adolescents, particularly girls.

Haidt concludes that social media poses significant risks to girls’ mental health due to their higher engagement in visually oriented platforms, greater sensitivity to social comparison, and increased vulnerability to relational aggression and emotional contagion. These factors combine to create a toxic environment that harms girls more than boys, explaining the dramatic rise in mental health issues among young women in the digital age.

Haidt explores the specific challenges boys face in the digital age, using the story of Johann Hari’s godson to illustrate a broader trend. Hari’s godson, once a lively child, became consumed by screens, spending all his time on his phone, iPad, and computer. This transformation reflects a wider issue among boys, who increasingly immerse themselves in digital activities, leading to social isolation and fragmented attention.

Changing Engagement with the Real World

Haidt notes that boys have experienced a gradual decline in real-world engagement, starting before the mental health declines of the 2010s. Boys’ time spent with friends began decreasing in the early 2000s, with a sharper decline after 2010. Unlike girls, who show a sharp increase in depression and anxiety after 2010, boys’ mental health issues present more diffusely, with rising rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide, but still lower than girls’ rates.

The Push-Pull Analysis

Haidt employs a “push-pull” analysis to explain this phenomenon. The “push” involves structural changes since the 1970s that made the real world less hospitable to boys. Factors like deindustrialization reduced the value of physical strength and increased the importance of skills in communication and collaboration, areas where women often excel. Additionally, the rise of safetyism limited boys’ opportunities for rough-and-tumble play and risk-taking.

The “pull” comes from the digital world, which offers boys numerous opportunities to fulfill their desires for agency and communion through video games, online pornography, and social media. These activities provide an easy escape from the real world but often lead to negative consequences like social isolation, reduced real-world skills, and mental health issues.

The Long Decline of Males

The 2022 book Of Boys and Men, by Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Richard Reeves, highlights the structural and economic changes that have disadvantaged men and boys. The shift to a service economy, the decline in physical labor, and the rise of educational and employment opportunities for women have contributed to boys’ declining fortunes. Reeves emphasizes that these changes have left boys feeling purposeless and adrift.

Impact of Safetyism and Digital Immersion

The rise of safetyism and the increasing availability of digital devices have particularly harmed boys. Boys’ reduced engagement in real-world risky activities has led to fewer opportunities for developing social skills and resilience. The digital world, with its endless stimulation and low social risk, further isolates boys from real-world experiences necessary for adulthood.

Failure to Launch and Hikikomori Phenomenon

Haidt discusses the phenomenon of “failure to launch,” where young men struggle to transition to adulthood, often living with their parents and lacking employment or educational engagement. He draws parallels to Japan’s hikikomori, or individuals who withdraw entirely from society. This trend has been increasingly observed in the West, where boys retreat into digital spaces, avoiding real-world challenges.

Haidt concludes that the Great Rewiring has pulled boys away from real-world communities and anchored them in transient, virtual networks. This shift has led to anomie, or a sense of normlessness and despair, as described by sociologist Émile Durkheim. Both boys and girls, despite their different paths, end up feeling that life is meaningless, highlighting the impact of digital immersion on mental health and social development.

Haidt explores the impact of technology on our spiritual well-being. He shifts from a social scientist’s perspective to a personal one, sharing his own sense of being overwhelmed since the 2010s. Haidt believes that the phone-based life has led to spiritual degradation, affecting not just adolescents but adults as well.

Dimensions of Social Space

Haidt revisits a concept from his book The Happiness Hypothesis, where he described three dimensions of social space: the horizontal axis of closeness, and the two vertical axes of hierarchy and divinity. The divinity axis is a way of marking how virtuous actions elevate us spiritually, while base actions degrade us. Haidt uses Thomas Jefferson’s reflections on literature to illustrate how moral elevation inspires people to emulate virtuous behavior.

Impact of Phone-Based Life

Haidt argues that the phone-based life generally pulls people downward on the divinity axis. It promotes spiritual degradation by blocking or counteracting six key spiritual practices: shared sacredness, embodiment, stillness, silence, focus, self-transcendence, being slow to anger and quick to forgive, and finding awe in nature.

Shared Sacredness

Shared sacredness means engaging in rituals and communal practices that elevate individuals to a collective realm. Religious rituals and non-religious communal activities like sports events create a sense of collective effervescence. In contrast, virtual interactions lack this communal sacredness, leading to a sense of anomie.

Embodiment

Physical rituals and synchronous movement, such as prayer, singing, and dancing, enhance feelings of communion and trust. The COVID pandemic’s shift to virtual interactions highlighted the loss of these embodied practices. Haidt emphasizes the importance of in-person communal events and activities to restore a sense of sacredness and connection.

Stillness, Silence, and Focus

Haidt explains that spiritual practices often involve stillness and meditation, which help calm the mind and promote well-being. In contrast, the phone-based life bombards us with notifications and distractions, fragmenting our attention and preventing inner peace. Haidt advocates for reducing digital stimulation and incorporating moments of quiet reflection into daily life.

Self-Transcendence

Spiritual experiences often involve self-transcendence, where individuals feel connected to something beyond themselves. The default mode network (DMN) in the brain, active during self-focused thinking, becomes less active during these moments. Social media, however, amplifies self-focus and hinders self-transcendence. Haidt suggests reducing social media use and engaging in activities that promote self-transcendence, such as meditation and nature walks.

Being Slow to Anger, Quick to Forgive

Haidt highlights the importance of forgiveness and reduced judgmentalism, as taught by many religious traditions. Social media encourages rapid public judgments and amplifies anger. Haidt instead urges readers to cultivate forgiveness and grace, counteracting the negative influences of social media.

Finding Awe in Nature

Nature has a considerable impact on spiritual well-being, evoking awe and diminishing self-focus. Awe walks and time in natural settings can significantly reduce anxiety and enhance a sense of connection. Haidt encourages deliberate efforts to experience nature without digital distractions.

Haidt concludes that the phone-based life fills our lives with trivial and degrading content, pulling us downward on the divinity axis. To counteract this, he advises taking control of our inputs, reducing digital distractions, and engaging in practices that elevate us spiritually. This chapter sets the stage for Part 4, where Haidt will discuss actionable solutions to improve our well-being.