Increasing levels of depression and anxiety have been recorded in young people since around 2011.
The novel ‘The Anxious Generation’ makes the case that young people today are suffering because a play-based childhood has been replaced by a phone-based childhood.
Its author, Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt from New York University’s Stern School of Business talks to Heather du Plessis-Allan about the issue.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We're about to talk about one of my favorite books. Now,
if you're a regular listener to the show, you'll know
that I am a ridiculously huge fan of The Anxious
Generation by Jonathan Height. In the book, Jonathan makes the
case that kids today are increasingly suffering from anxiety and
depression simply because they don't play enough, and instead they
sit around on the phones and the social media. Jonathan
Height is based in New York. Jonathan, Hello, Hello Heather, Jonathan.
(00:22):
Can I stop by saying I love the book? I mean,
obviously I'm a parent, so obviously I did. Do you
get that a lot?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I do. No one has ever really stopped me in
the street to thank me for my work. I mean
it's happened occasionally, but once this book came out, what's
happening is that mothers, it's almost always mothers are stopping
me in the street and saying thank you because they've
just been up against this, they felt it, and so yeah,
it's been really fun to see the reception.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
What do you think it is? I mean, do you
think that maybe mothers and maybe in a way all
of us humans kind of understood that there was something
wrong with what was going on, and then something weird
about the impact that social media was having, but we
couldn't quite put it into words, and you kind to
put flesh on those bones. Do you think that's what
it is?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yes, I think that's exactly what it is. But just
to go a little further, I would say that wherever
smartphones were introduced, they are amazing devices. They're always more
interesting than anything else that could be going on. So
wherever smartphones have been introduced, family life has turned into
a fight over screen time, over phone use. And that's
(01:23):
true in all the countries that I've been to and
the countries that I haven't been to. And I think
mothers were just much more aware of the struggle. They
were often more involved in the struggle. And the main
thing though, I think is that mothers often they just
feel they feel the relationship changing more than fathers do.
Women are just more sensitive to the nature of a
relationship as it's changing. And when you give your happy, funny,
(01:45):
smart ten year old a smartphone and then a few
months later, you can't really get their attention and they
seem always focused on it. I think mothers felt that
more than fathers did.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
What do you think and look this is my family
asking this question. Now, kids are always too young to be
on smartphones, but we obviously work on them. So how
do you balance that with the kids? Do you how
do you not be on this? Do you have to
not be on the smartphones at all? Or do you
have to explain to the kids, I'm going to use
my phone now to do some work. How do you
do that?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, So, first of all, teenagers in particular are not
copying their parents. If you pick up a good habit,
if you start reading the Economist magazine, no eleven year
old is going to say, well, mom was reading the Economist,
I am going to read them. That's not the way
it works. Now with little kids, it really matters what
you do. When you have a one or a two
year old and you are doing what is called continuous
(02:34):
partial attention, that's where you're trying to do your email
while also kind of interacting with your toddler. So that
is definitely bad because the child is forming her internal
mental models of you and of the world. And if
if you as an attachment figure, if you're only paying
partial attention, you're more on your phone, that is bad.
(02:56):
So don't do that. But I think You don't have
to blame yourself so much. If you are using your
phone sometimes, just be sure to have lots of good times.
Put it this way, if you're with your kid, try
to really be with your kid. If they don't see
you doing some work when you're on your phone for
an hour, that's okay. Look, mom and dad do work.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Jonathan on the social media thing, on the banning of
the kids. We are considering this as a country, and
the biggest argument that we get against it is that
it's technologically not possible.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Is that true, Jonathan, Well, I can't force myself to
laugh on command, but I'll try. Ha ha ha. There
are so many industries that already agegate. There are already
and if you want to gamble by alcohol, there are
lots of industries that age gate. There are dozens of
companies that offer age gating. There are so many of
them that they have their own trade association. They have
(03:45):
had it for at least five or six years when
I first noticed it, and the technology gets better all
the time. So the idea that we can't do this
is absurd. These companies are brilliant. They can do anything
if they're motivated to and right Now, current law in
the United States and most other countries strongly incentivizes them
to not know the age. American law was written so
(04:07):
the companies cannot take data from children without their parents'
permission unless the child is thirteen years old or older.
But they put into law that as long as the
company doesn't have positive information that the child is under thirteen,
then they can do whatever the hell they want to them.
So that's the way American law is written. Unfortunately, we
cause this problem, but the companies actually do know how
(04:30):
old people are, so it's not a question of whether
we can age gate. We have to. I mean, the
idea that children can go everywhere on the internet, talk
with strangers, get sex storted, but you know, buy drugs.
I mean, this is complete insanity. So it's just a
question of when it's going to happen, and the answer
is November because Australia said, look, you guys have to
(04:53):
just do this, and the government there is working with
the platforms. There are lots and lots of ways to
do it. It doesn't have to work perfect in the
first year, but the way the technology is, it will
get so much better once they're motivated to actually solve
the problem that they created.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Are you sure, Jonathan, are you sure sure sure that
this is not a moral panic on our part?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well, look, as a scientist, I can never say I'm
one hundred percent sure about anything. But let me address
the moral panic concern, because that's a common one, the
idea that, oh, this is just what we said about
comic books and television, and oh, let's go back to
Socrates who said this about writing. Sure, you know, adults
are always concerned about a new technology. And first of all,
(05:37):
you know, some of the past technologies have been dangerous,
even television. If you let your kids watch five hours
a day when they're three years old, that actually has
been shown to harm them. But in previous episodes that
were called moral panics, they're so different from this one.
The main one is that a previous moral panic is
one that's spread through the media. And so did you
(06:00):
hear the one about the kid who read a comic
book and then ax murdered his mother, Like you know,
stories like that go around. It probably never happened even once,
and if it happened, it happened once. But did you
hear about the mother who gave her kid a smartphone?
And the kid became addicted and then got sex storted
and then got into We all know that family. Because
(06:21):
this is not spread through the media. This is spread
by the fact that it's something like one out of
three families, you're going to have a kid who is depressed, anxious, suicidal,
and it's often related to what they're doing online. We're
all seeing this. One other difference I should point out
in previous moral panics, the kids weren't saying these comic
books are terrible for us, help help us get off
(06:41):
comic books that didn't happen. But when we survey members
of gen Z about social media, they're pretty negative about it.
They regret what it did to them. They wish they
didn't have to be on it, but they say they
have to because everyone else is on it. So no,
I don't accept that, Oh, there's nothing going on here,
nothing to see here, asked adults freaking out. No, I'm
(07:02):
quite confident that that is not true.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Jonathan, Thank you so much for your time. It's been
an absolute pleasure to talk to you, and just wonderful book.
Thank you for writing it. Jonathan Hite, who is the
author of The Anxious Generation. Listen if you're interest I mean,
obviously read the book if you're a parent, but if
you're interested in just having a little dope, If you
don't want to spend the money but you still want
to get the info, head along to the Anxious Generation
dot com. That's his website, and then he and his
team also put out all of their research for free
(07:26):
on substack, and his substack is after bable Let's be
a B E L dot com.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
We're about to talk about one of my favorite books. Now,
if you're a regular listener to the show, you'll know
that I am a ridiculously huge fan of The Anxious
Generation by Jonathan Height. In the book, Jonathan makes the
case that kids today are increasingly suffering from anxiety and
depression simply because they don't play enough, and instead they
sit around on the phones and the social media. Jonathan
Height is based in New York. Jonathan, Hello, Hello Heather, Jonathan.
(00:22):
Can I stop by saying I love the book? I mean,
obviously I'm a parent, so obviously I did. Do you
get that a lot?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I do. No one has ever really stopped me in
the street to thank me for my work. I mean
it's happened occasionally, but once this book came out, what's
happening is that mothers, it's almost always mothers are stopping
me in the street and saying thank you because they've
just been up against this, they felt it, and so yeah,
it's been really fun to see the reception.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
What do you think it is? I mean, do you
think that maybe mothers and maybe in a way all
of us humans kind of understood that there was something
wrong with what was going on, and then something weird
about the impact that social media was having, but we
couldn't quite put it into words, and you kind to
put flesh on those bones. Do you think that's what
it is?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yes, I think that's exactly what it is. But just
to go a little further, I would say that wherever
smartphones were introduced, they are amazing devices. They're always more
interesting than anything else that could be going on. So
wherever smartphones have been introduced, family life has turned into
a fight over screen time, over phone use. And that's
(01:23):
true in all the countries that I've been to and
the countries that I haven't been to. And I think
mothers were just much more aware of the struggle. They
were often more involved in the struggle. And the main
thing though, I think is that mothers often they just
feel they feel the relationship changing more than fathers do.
Women are just more sensitive to the nature of a
relationship as it's changing. And when you give your happy, funny,
(01:45):
smart ten year old a smartphone and then a few
months later, you can't really get their attention and they
seem always focused on it. I think mothers felt that
more than fathers did.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
What do you think and look this is my family
asking this question. Now, kids are always too young to be
on smartphones, but we obviously work on them. So how
do you balance that with the kids? Do you how
do you not be on this? Do you have to
not be on the smartphones at all? Or do you
have to explain to the kids, I'm going to use
my phone now to do some work. How do you
do that?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, So, first of all, teenagers in particular are not
copying their parents. If you pick up a good habit,
if you start reading the Economist magazine, no eleven year
old is going to say, well, mom was reading the Economist,
I am going to read them. That's not the way
it works. Now with little kids, it really matters what
you do. When you have a one or a two
year old and you are doing what is called continuous
(02:34):
partial attention, that's where you're trying to do your email
while also kind of interacting with your toddler. So that
is definitely bad because the child is forming her internal
mental models of you and of the world. And if
if you as an attachment figure, if you're only paying
partial attention, you're more on your phone, that is bad.
(02:56):
So don't do that. But I think You don't have
to blame yourself so much. If you are using your
phone sometimes, just be sure to have lots of good times.
Put it this way, if you're with your kid, try
to really be with your kid. If they don't see
you doing some work when you're on your phone for
an hour, that's okay. Look, mom and dad do work.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Jonathan on the social media thing, on the banning of
the kids. We are considering this as a country, and
the biggest argument that we get against it is that
it's technologically not possible.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Is that true, Jonathan, Well, I can't force myself to
laugh on command, but I'll try. Ha ha ha. There
are so many industries that already agegate. There are already
and if you want to gamble by alcohol, there are
lots of industries that age gate. There are dozens of
companies that offer age gating. There are so many of
them that they have their own trade association. They have
(03:45):
had it for at least five or six years when
I first noticed it, and the technology gets better all
the time. So the idea that we can't do this
is absurd. These companies are brilliant. They can do anything
if they're motivated to and right Now, current law in
the United States and most other countries strongly incentivizes them
to not know the age. American law was written so
(04:07):
the companies cannot take data from children without their parents'
permission unless the child is thirteen years old or older.
But they put into law that as long as the
company doesn't have positive information that the child is under thirteen,
then they can do whatever the hell they want to them.
So that's the way American law is written. Unfortunately, we
cause this problem, but the companies actually do know how
(04:30):
old people are, so it's not a question of whether
we can age gate. We have to. I mean, the
idea that children can go everywhere on the internet, talk
with strangers, get sex storted, but you know, buy drugs.
I mean, this is complete insanity. So it's just a
question of when it's going to happen, and the answer
is November because Australia said, look, you guys have to
(04:53):
just do this, and the government there is working with
the platforms. There are lots and lots of ways to
do it. It doesn't have to work perfect in the
first year, but the way the technology is, it will
get so much better once they're motivated to actually solve
the problem that they created.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Are you sure, Jonathan, are you sure sure sure that
this is not a moral panic on our part?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well, look, as a scientist, I can never say I'm
one hundred percent sure about anything. But let me address
the moral panic concern, because that's a common one, the
idea that, oh, this is just what we said about
comic books and television, and oh, let's go back to
Socrates who said this about writing. Sure, you know, adults
are always concerned about a new technology. And first of all,
(05:37):
you know, some of the past technologies have been dangerous,
even television. If you let your kids watch five hours
a day when they're three years old, that actually has
been shown to harm them. But in previous episodes that
were called moral panics, they're so different from this one.
The main one is that a previous moral panic is
one that's spread through the media. And so did you
(06:00):
hear the one about the kid who read a comic
book and then ax murdered his mother, Like you know,
stories like that go around. It probably never happened even once,
and if it happened, it happened once. But did you
hear about the mother who gave her kid a smartphone?
And the kid became addicted and then got sex storted
and then got into We all know that family. Because
(06:21):
this is not spread through the media. This is spread
by the fact that it's something like one out of
three families, you're going to have a kid who is depressed, anxious, suicidal,
and it's often related to what they're doing online. We're
all seeing this. One other difference I should point out
in previous moral panics, the kids weren't saying these comic
books are terrible for us, help help us get off
(06:41):
comic books that didn't happen. But when we survey members
of gen Z about social media, they're pretty negative about it.
They regret what it did to them. They wish they
didn't have to be on it, but they say they
have to because everyone else is on it. So no,
I don't accept that, Oh, there's nothing going on here,
nothing to see here, asked adults freaking out. No, I'm
(07:02):
quite confident that that is not true.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Jonathan, Thank you so much for your time. It's been
an absolute pleasure to talk to you, and just wonderful book.
Thank you for writing it. Jonathan Hite, who is the
author of The Anxious Generation. Listen if you're interest I mean,
obviously read the book if you're a parent, but if
you're interested in just having a little dope, If you
don't want to spend the money but you still want
to get the info, head along to the Anxious Generation
dot com. That's his website, and then he and his
team also put out all of their research for free
(07:26):
on substack, and his substack is after bable Let's be
a B E L dot com.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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