“The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt – A Must Read for Parents: Reflections by Susan Caso, MA, LPC

In The Anxious Generation Haidt and his research team illuminate major contributors to teens’ mental health decline over the last two decades, particularly around smartphone and social media use. His central thesis is that two trends, “overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world” are why “children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.” “Thank you, Jonathan Haidt!” was my first thought upon reading his work.

As a therapist for over two decades and a parent of three children (ages 25, 21, and 11), I have seen firsthand how the lives of teens have changed in recent years. When I sit with teens I hear stress stemming from the evolution of the smartphone, new apps and features and the increase in use at younger ages.  Situations that pose distressed responses like, “It’s been ten minutes and they didn’t respond,” or  “I see everyone’s location, I must be out of the group, I have no friends” and “ I am not doing that, I’m behind, it’s too late for me.”  Screens now fill a teen’s life with minute to minute updates of belonging in their peer groups, chaos, doom and gloom, and needless social comparisons. Haidt writes a compelling narrative showing how social media hijacks cognitive processes in teen (and adult) brains.

Haidt’s research-backed findings assert that play-based childhood has shifted over time into phone-based childhood. Haidt explains that children need free play – in person – for healthy social, emotional, and physical development. Children learn through discovery, playing with others, taking risks, and direct physical interactions with their peers and adults. This developmental time still includes the adolescent years, a crucial time of brain development, strengthening and pruning of neural connections. Instead of age-appropriate, developmentally necessary in-person stimulation, screen-based entertainment has become a means of “play” at younger and younger ages.

Haidt also found, “smartphones, along with overprotection, acted like ‘experience blockers’”. Fear-based campaigns focusing on “stranger danger,” led parents to over-shelter and over-supervise, believing the “in person” world was unsafe. Haidt says we’ve turned from discover mode to defend mode, causing children to miss growth opportunities. Haidt explains “defend mode” can hinder the development of a secure attachment system, which is vital to building self-confidence, self-worth, and social-emotional growth. We need exploration to seek and experience healthy present and future relationships. What Haidt terms as “safetyism” can hold children back. Safeytism means clinging to a secure home base, instead of building a secure attachment style. He says children ought to feel safe to go out and explore “overcoming anxieties, learning to manage risk, and learning to be self-governing, all of which are essential for becoming healthy competent adults.”

Think about this: Teens spend an average of five plus hours per day watching other kids, celebrities, and influencers online, rather than simply living their own lives. This is bound to have an impact in many ways on a teens growth and mental health.

Importantly, Haidt also addresses the “serve return” between parent and infant, which is how secure bonds are created between parent and child. I educate parents of my teen clients this “serve return” between parent and child actually never goes away, it just looks slightly different as kids age. The serve return shifts to more emotional connection that results from listening, empathizing, reassuring, and comforting. This can only be done when people are attuned and attentive to each other. When absent disconnection occurs, safety and closeness is compromised. Screens pose a barrier to the serve return. This process of serve return creates a bond between teen and parent and allows teens to reach out to parents when teens aren’t doing so well. Healthy connection serves as a source of calm for teens and a safe landing place. The back-and-forth also models and strengthens good communication skills like listening, empathizing and time spent together which is vital for lasting and loving long-term relationships.

Kids, now exploring more online than in person, are experiencing a brain rewiring that increases rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide – according to Haidt. No guardrails exist to keep teens from viewing age-inappropriate material online, like porn, violence, doom and gloom news, and R- or X-rated shows and games. Kids are becoming addicted to screens, gaming, and social media. Further, dating apps, hookup culture, and porn negatively impact how teens view intimate relationships.  Devices hinder teens from staying present in personal relationships. Online “notifications” jarringly interrupt our real lives. Merely knowing others are waiting online or suspecting there is something better to view online causes much discord in existing in-person relationships.

Teens are at a stage of development where they are discovering who they are and where they fit in the world. Adolescence is a time of exploration and individuation. Social media bombards them with models they interpret as “who and how I should be”, creating confusion and distress. It is natural for teens to compare themselves to their peers yet social media does not represent a true “peer to peer” comparison.  The adolescent years are met with changes and notoriously insecurities.  Social media serves as a place where teens hyperfocus on their existing insecurities and create new ones.

Teenagers have always faced challenges in navigating peer relationships and social hierarchy, but the online social world creates a constant need to monitor, a 24/7 task of checking in with friends to insure they are in good standing.  As a result, feeling a sense of belonging can be a continual stress in a teens life.

An unrestricted online world also leaves youth with little hope that the world is a safe place. The trend of round-the-clock news that began with CNN in 1980 delivers our screens the constant feeling that things are bad, and won’t get better. News used to be delivered at set times of the day (morning and evening), to our home TV’s, allowing time to absorb and integrate facts about the outside world into our daily lives and take a much needed break from doom news.  For our teens, 24/7 news is simply too much to handle. It is all too much for a developing brain to take in. Remember that stress feels different to teens than adults, because their brain’s frontal lobe is still not fully developed.

Haidt sounds an alarm about the excessive use of social media and unsupervised time spent in the online world. He asks, “Will we eventually realize… we need to protect children from harm even when it inconveniences adults?”

Technology is now embedded in our daily lives – from heavy use in school and work environments to notifications about missing assignments and news – yet we’ve gained few insights on how to manage technology’s place in our lives.  Technology has a place, and we need to understand what that is for each of us.  Misuse or overuse of social media causes harm. Help teens recognize the signs. Each individual (teen or adult) needs to understand online tendencies and consciously try not to replace time spent making in-person connections with time spent online. Look at it as a choice, would I rather satisfy my curiosity or protect my mental health.

If you told a teen, “I have something for you that can connect you to your friends 24/7, possibly make you popular, feel a sense of belonging, and never cause you to be bored,” what do you think they would say? They would leap at the opportunity! If you then warned them, “It might come with some risks. It could compromise how you feel about yourself. It might at times crush your sense of belonging and self-worth, possibly explode your insecurities and create new ones, increase feelings of FOMO, cause you to not stay on task at school or be present in your current in-person relationships, and you may end up feeling anxious and depressed.”  What do you think they would say? They would risk it because the pull toward social connection outweighs the risk for teens.

Haidt recommends these solutions: 

• Phone-free schools,
• No smartphones before high school,
• No social media before sixteen,
• More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world.

Adding to Haidt’s recommendations, based on my experience as a family therapist and a parent, I would offer this to parents: Open dialogue with your teen is imperative – whether about the increased pressures of academic success, extracurricular activities, their rigorous schedules (other factors contributing to teens mental health decline today), and about dangers of social media. Please collaborate with teens to help them find a balanced life that promotes mental well-being, highlights in-person connections with family and friends, and prioritizes a healthy process of individuation.

Discuss with your teens any thoughts or feelings arising from smartphone and social media use by asking questions like:

• “How does social media impact how you view yourself?”
• “How does social media impact how you view other people and the world around you?”

Let them know that if we are not doing well emotionally, jumping online can exacerbate those difficult feelings. You can share insights like, “How we feel can depend on what we view, and we often can’t control what we see next on social media.”

Please make in person connection a priority over time spent online, and model the smartphone and social media behavior you want to see. Kids don’t do as parents say, they do what we do.

Whether your child is anxious, depressed, or not, smartphones should not be raising your teen. We – as a collective – need to listen to Jonathan Haidt. Delay and deter smartphone use. Build in guardrails and mindful use of social media.

Thank you, Jonathan Haidt, and your team of researchers, for writing this important book.

– Susan Caso, MA, LPC

Author of “The Parent-Teen Connection”