Warning: Childhood is in danger of extinction
What happened in 2010 made being a parent or teacher harder than ever
Something catastrophic happened in 2010 that made childhood unrecognisable.
The generation that was 10–15 years old then became the most anxious and depressed ever.
It’s likely to get far worse unless things change.
And it affects girls more than boys.
I find this trend alarming.
Why are children growing so sad and worried?
The standard answer lays the blame on the state of the world today.
The hard times we live in.
The pileup of
climate change
war
institutional failure
corruption
lousy leadership
and, of course, I could go on.
Quite the list, for sure.
But every generation lives through hardship and threat.
World Wars and the Great Depression.
Plague, famine, and natural disasters.
Lacking records of the quality of mental health back then, it’s hard to compare.
But we can track mental well-being trends a few decades pre- and post-2010.
As Jonathan Haidt does in his book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.”
The research shows anxiety and depression have trended up sharply since 2010 in Gen Z.
That's the children and teenagers born in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Showing much more mental anguish than in the Millennials who came before.
And Haidt debunks the argument that the state of the world is the major contributor to youth mental health.
So, what happened in 2010?
Not the fallout from the Global Financial Crisis.
And not the internet. (Most kids before 2010 had access to their parents’ computers at home).
And not cell phones. Flipphones have been around for a while.
You guessed it. In 2010, many kids in Gen Z got smartphones.
Internet and social media 24/7, in your hand, everywhere you go.
And this changed everything.
But didn’t smartphones open up the world to us? How would we survive without our apps?
Yes, we know about the good effects because we, as adults, all enjoy the convenience of our phones every day.
Smartphones also gave kids access to a 24/7 world outside
their home
their friends
their school
their family
their country.
Potential for freedom, information, and connection.
And the bad effects?
Smartphones gave kids access to a 24/7 new world.
Potential for addiction, isolation, and exposure to content intended for adults.
And when, at the same time, you add “sharing” and “selfies” on social media, you create the perfect storm for a downward spiral in youth mental health.
Haidt’s book highlights the sinister effect of being born into a digital age—the hijacking of childhood itself.
Because evolution over millennia has deemed this the time when the brain lays down a neural network to prepare for adulthood.
Describing “The Great Rewiring of Childhood,” Haidt explains,
Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable…
Succeeding socially in that universe required them to devote a large part of their consciousness—perpetually—to managing what became their online brand. This was now necessary to gain acceptance from peers, which is the oxygen of adolescence, and to avoid online shaming, which is the nightmare of adolescence.
Remember when being a teenager was pressure enough? Managing an onrush of hormones, doing well at school, and staying clear of parental upset?
Now kids have to measure up in new ways online:
how you look
what you know
what you’re doing
what you’re wearing
how many online friends you have.
When dopamine hits come fast and frequently, users want to stay longer online. Yet they never feel satisfied.
Just as the social media algorithms want it.
And because kids spend an average of 7 hours outside school doing this, there’s way less time for their world in real life.
And why did this destroy childhood as we know it?
Goodbye to the time kids used to spend playing.
But science finds free play matters to a developing brain.
It’s where kids seek thrills, learn to take risks, and overcome anxiety.
It’s how they become anti-fragile.
Learn how to be social.
Be a good friend.
Handle conflict.
Develop boundaries.
Adolescence is for finding out all the challenges you can meet and growing in independence.
No wonder kids feel sad and worried. They don't get time to prove themselves in the real world the way kids for millennia have done.
So what can be done about this in the face of even more addiction to social media in 2024?
Haidt offers solutions for governments, parents and teachers, including:
Phone-free schools
Play-full schools
More apprenticeships
Better playgrounds
Camping trips
Less micro-management
No screen time before 24 months
No-device zones
Age-related parental controls
Delay opening social media accounts till 16
Encourage part-time jobs
High school exchange
Outward Bound and self-reliance programs
Adult role-modelling
We all know that overuse of digital devices causes tech neck, eye strain, and affects the quality of our sleep. The statistics about the damage to our adult attention span and ability to concentrate are sobering.
But they escalate to truly disturbing when we consider them in the developing brain of a child or teenager.
I encourage you to read Haidt’s book. You’ll get a dose of angst with an urgent call to action.
Parents and teachers of teenagers, I’m in awe of you. Reversing this social trend is not going to be easy and will meet with resistance from kids and Big Tech.
But, thinking about our own childhood, we owe this to kids. We had more freedom, independence, awe, and even boredom and we took it for granted.
Let’s tackle this together and allow kids a childhood that helps them grow into happy secure adults.
You deserve our support.