Even though much of The Anxious Generation will be familiar — it arrives amid a huge amount of publicity, and pundits have been talking of little else these past few weeks — the book is a hard read. Author Jonathan Haidt makes the case that, for the generation who went through adolescence after 2009 and with smartphone in hand, the advent of social media and gaming has disastrously “rewired childhood”.
The message has certainly struck a chord; Haidt, a social psychologist and professor of ethical leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business, has a knack for capturing the zeitgeist. The Righteous Mind (2012) looked at the role of emotion and reason in moral convictions. The Coddling of the American Mind (2018), co-written with Greg Lukianoff, described a culture of “safetyism” in which helicopter parents and educators protect their young charges from potential harm, including even thoughts.
Policymakers and parents in many countries worry about the impact of smartphones. The British grassroots movement Smartphone Free Childhood has been spreading, set up by parents who aim to keep the devices out of their kids’ grip. In the UK, the issue has also gained a higher profile because of the case of the transgender teenager Brianna Ghey, murdered by two fellow school pupils last year; her mother, Esther Ghey, has campaigned vociferously for controlling social media for under-16s. Last week, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a law enacting similar restrictions; other US states are considering such interventions.