“The Anxious Generation”: A Premature Indictment of Social Media?
In an amusing juxtaposition, I first encountered Jonathan Haidt’s critique of social media via my own social media feeds. (“The calls are coming from inside the house!”)
Haidt’s new book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” seems to have struck a chord, with praise buzzing across the internet suggesting he has delivered a definitive verdict: social media is rewiring our children’s brains, fueling an epidemic of anxiety and depression, and we must take swift action to curb its influence. Ban TikTok! Take away their phones!
I admit I haven’t yet read Haidt’s book myself. But I can’t help but be skeptical of this emerging consensus that social media is an unmitigated evil that must be stopped at all costs. Are there problematic aspects to the hyper-connectedness of modern life, especially for young people still forming their identities and learning to navigate complex social dynamics? Absolutely. The constant pressure to curate a perfect online persona, the impossible beauty standards reinforced by filters and photoshop, the instant broadcasting of every embarrassing moment or unpopular opinion — it’s a lot for a developing brain to handle.
But is social media really the boogeyman solely responsible for skyrocketing rates of anxiety and depression in young people? I’m not convinced it’s that simple. And I’m not the only one urging caution in jumping to premature conclusions.
In a recent piece for Nature, psychologist Candice Odgers argues that the evidence linking social media to mental health issues is far murkier than Haidt and others suggest. She points to several meta-analyses and systematic reviews finding no consistent, measurable associations between social media use and wellbeing. The largest long-term study of adolescent brain development in the U.S. has found no evidence of drastic changes due to technology use. And in Odgers’ own research tracking teen mental health and tech habits, she’s found mostly small and mixed associations, with causality unclear.
“Hundreds of researchers, myself included, have searched for the kind of large effects suggested by Haidt,” Odgers writes. “Our efforts have produced a mix of no, small and mixed associations.”
She urges us to consider the many complex factors contributing to the mental health crisis — economic hardship in the wake of the 2008 recession, the opioid epidemic, exposure to violence, discrimination, and abuse. More teens are reporting symptoms, but services to support them remain woefully inadequate. Zeroing in on social media as the key variable risks ignoring these critical issues.
But there’s another factor we can’t ignore: the dawning realization among younger generations that very little of what made up the firmament of our culture is rooted in reality. The myths of American exceptionalism, bootstraps meritocracy, faith in inerrant deities — these pillars are crumbling as they collide with lived experience. And that’s the crack where the light comes in.
Millennials and Gen Z are furious about inheriting a world scarred by gun violence, climate catastrophe, and yawning inequality. They’re tired of the status quo patting them on the head and telling them to grow up and fall in line. And they’re using social media to discover they’re part of a transformational cohort, to forge solidarity and strategize for change.
Perhaps that’s the real reason both political parties seem bent on strangling TikTok and its ilk in the crib. Sure, there are legitimate concerns about data privacy and foreign influence. But at the end of the day, the powers that be simply don’t like backtalk from the kids.
So when Haidt and others sound the alarm about an epidemic of mental illness among the young, I can’t help but wonder if they’re misdiagnosing a mass rejection of the pathologies our conventional culture treats as normal — the pursuit of endless growth on a finite planet, the celebration of greed and individualism over empathy and the common good.
Of course, none of this is to say we should give social media companies a free pass. Reforms are absolutely needed to make their platforms safer and more age-appropriate. But Odgers’ perspective is an important counterweight to the moral panic already coalescing around Haidt’s book — a panic that, somewhat paradoxically, seems to be spreading virally on the very platforms he condemns.
So by all means, let’s figure out how to make social media a healthier place for kids to grow up. But let’s also have some humility in recognizing what we don’t yet understand, and not pin all the blame for their struggles on the technologies they’ve inherited from us. There are deeper currents of cultural change and generational awakening at play. Haidt may be raising important questions. But his diagnosis, and especially his prescription, are far from settled science — no matter how enthusiastically his thesis is retweeted.
