Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
Gen Z is more mentally ill, nervous, and less socially able than previous generations. In his 2024 book The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that this is due to a switch from ‘play-based’ to ‘phone-based’ childhoods, which began in the early 2010s in the West, particularly in America. When children were given smartphones, their childhoods changed, as they could now be online everywhere and at any time. Haidt posits that this transition has led to a massive change in human consciousness, as most waking hours have been taken over by being online or by ruminating on what is happening online.
This has led to a mental health crisis among young people. In America, there was a sudden and sharp increase in anxiety and depression among teens between 2010 and 2015. In the UK, during this period, self-harm episodes increased by nearly 80% among teenage girls and by 130% among boys. Haidt calls this transition period ‘the Great Rewiring of Childhood’, intimating the deep neurological changes that occur as a result of increased phone use among young people.
The book identifies a set of core harms of the phone-based childhood on Gen Z. It increases sleep deprivation among kids, fragments our attention, and occasionally causes screen addiction. Crucially, the Great Rewiring of Childhood has led to an epidemic of ‘social deprivation’ according to Haidt. Children spend less time with their friends, and the quality of those interactions worsens, as they pay more attention to what is happening in their virtual worlds than to real life, even when they are not on their phones.
Moreover, while teens increasingly digitalise their social worlds, online connections do not produce the same benefits as real-life ones because they are ‘disembodied’ – they do not require interacting face-to-face. Thus, they do not allow children to develop key social skills, such as picking up on verbal and physical cues or learning to imitate and synchronise with their peers. Haidt explains that introducing these devices to us during puberty has harmed us more, as puberty is one of the most vulnerable and malleable stages of our brain’s development.
‘The Great Rewiring of Childhood’ has also produced a generation of fearful and anxious young adults who are less able to explore and connect. Haidt remarks that when Gen Z arrive at university, they lack the courage to seek out the things and people they are interested in. Indeed, phone-based childhoods foster kids who live in ‘defend mode’ rather than in ‘discover mode’, and these modes determine how much people get out of campus life: Are they approaching their academic and social lives with curiosity or fear? Do they dare to seek out new yet frightening experiences?
Overall, Haidt concludes that the West has overprotected children from the real world, boxing them in the online space, and preventing them from developing social, cognitive, and emotional skills. But Haidt is optimistic: he believes we can move away from phone-based childhoods if we make a coordinated effort to phase out screens from childhood. Indeed, his book has sparked a widespread The Anxious Generation movement aiming to spark collective action.
With expertise in social psychology, deep insights into childhood development, and a reliance on credible and staggering data, Jonathan Haidt makes a compelling case that a Great Rewiring of Childhood has occurred and that it has negatively impacted young people. His book is a clear and lucid call addressed to young people, parents, teachers, and policymakers.
Haidt focuses on the US, where the effects of the Great Rewiring have been catastrophic. In European countries, fortunately, the phone-based childhood has not taken over the play-based one completely, which has mitigated the negative impacts. However, it is undeniable that, for those of us who grew up during the Great Rewiring, screen use has formed deep neural pathways in our brains that have made us more anxious. But that does not mean we cannot reshape our brains; we can slowly and grudgingly change our habits and make a conscious effort to start looking at the world in ‘discover’ mode.
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