"The Anxious Generation": How Smartphones Hit the Teenage Psyche

Reference News Network reported on May 13 that when life shifted to the Internet, what happened to the children of Generation Z? New York University professor Jonathan Haidt points out the mistakes we make with Gen Z, who were born between 1997 and 2012, and describes how we can save the next generation from the same pain.

The website of the Wall Street Journal recently published an article entitled "Book Review: Mobile Apps, Anxiety and Teens", written by Megan Cox Gurdon. Excerpts from the full text are as follows:

In 2012, The Onion News Network, known for its satire, aired a fictional television series about a teenager addicted to his smartphone who could only roll his eyes and text. "Caitlin Tigart used to be a beautiful and lively girl who loved to laugh and play outside, but that all changed when she was 12 years old," the journalist said. "Now the girl is addicted to electronic devices, pale and unresponsive. Caitlin's parents decided to euthanize her. The actor who plays her father said, "We can give her eyes to someone who can actually read with them." "This video was released at the right time. Smartphones have become ubiquitous, apps are popping up all over the place, and childhood itself is in the final throes of what social psychologist Jonathan Haight calls a "major reinvention."

The joie de vivre and adventure are disappearing

In the book "The Anxious Generation," Haight mercilessly details what happened to the children of Gen Z when their lives shifted online. For its part, this group is the first generation of people who have been able to constantly engage with the internet as they enter adolescence, and not only has play and socialization shifted to mobile phones, tablets, and consoles, but the fun and adventure of real life is also disappearing: tumbling outdoors, opportunities for physical independence, unsupervised entertainment. Haight observes that since the 80s of the 20th century, free play has been fading while technology has advanced in a big way, but it was not until the invention of the smartphone that allowed users to be online around the clock that the childhood transition from "play-oriented" to "mobile-oriented" was completed. In words that shocked parents, he wrote that the mass provision of smartphones to teenagers constituted "the largest uncontrolled experiment that humanity has ever carried out on its own children." This experiment was a disaster.

Those of us who had junior high school students and teenagers at home during the height of change from 2010 to 2015 must remember the confusion, bickering, and intermittent madness of that tumultuous era. Some children, like the fictional Caitlin, go from being vibrant participants in their own lives to "brainless" "machines" swiping through their phone screens in a matter of months. Others have become capricious, anxious about their "likes" and "followers," frantically following apps that their mothers and fathers barely understand: their Instas (public-facing Instagram accounts) and their Finstas (secret Instagram accounts shared with friends).

To succeed in internet socializing, Haight asserts, young people must "devote much of their consciousness – consistently – to managing their own 'online brand.'" This is essential for gaining peer approval (oxygen in adolescence) and avoiding cyber shaming (the nightmare of adolescence)".

While all this is happening, parents (who are also hypnotized by their phones) keep hearing and sometimes even seeing with their own eyes at home that children are in real trouble – depression, anxiety, self-harm, and even suicide. Smartphones and social media may seem to play a role in this maelstrom, but parents are struggling to know exactly how quantifiable the problem is. Even six or seven years ago, researchers found that adolescents who used smartphones for long periods of time were more likely to be depressed than those who socialized in a face-to-face format, but it was not clear for sure that this was the cause of this outcome.

Addiction to mobile phones leads to mental deterioration

Now, thanks to Haight, we get a glimpse of the truly terrible situation that is happening not only in the United States, but in the rest of the English-speaking world. Beginning in about 2010, the suicide rate among adolescents in the United States increased dramatically (91% for boys between the ages of 10 and 14 and 167% for girls in the same age). Between 2010 and 2020, the rate of self-harm almost tripled. In the UK, more children are also using self-harm to cope with severe anxiety and depression than before; In Australia, the proportion of both boys and girls hospitalised for mental health issues has risen dramatically.

Ironically, the birth of social media – and the "connectedness" it promises – has left young people more lonely and fewer friends. For girls, these apps have been shown to be toxic, Haight writes, "Social media use isn't just linked to mental illness; It can lead to mental illness". Boys are less susceptible to social media hazards but are more susceptible to online pornography. Hiding behind a bedroom door and living a virtual life built on a screen puts the boy at greater risk: languishing, apathy, and being "unable to bear" the responsibilities of adulthood.

It's a harrowing book, but it's also an uplifting one. New York University professor Haidt pointed out the mistakes we made with Gen Z, who were born between 1997 and 2012, and described how we can save the next generation from the same pain.

He advocated that schools should ban the use of smartphones not only during school hours, but throughout the school day, and give students more time outdoors. He advises parents to limit screen time for young children (and keep babies away from screens altogether) and defer teens' use of smartphones and social media until after high school. He believes that parents should maximize opportunities for their children to be autonomous and self-reliant, let them do household chores, and encourage them to gain real-life experience from real-world part-time jobs.

In "The Anxious Generation," Haight said, he briefly shed his professional identity and wrote "as an ordinary person." He argues that there was something very profound about the United States in the 2010s, a change that went far beyond the realm of raising children and the pains of adolescence. He has come to believe that "a life based on mobile phones leads to spiritual degeneration, not just for teenagers, but for all of us". (Compiler/Zhang Lin)

The cover of the book "The Anxious Generation".

(Source: Reference News)

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