Drew's Reviews #30 – “The Anxious Generation”

The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

I just finished reading "The Anxious Generation" by Jonathan Haidt.

Quick Take: How social media has hijacked childhood and how we might be able to fix it.

Longer Take:

Wow! I loved this book. Let me tell you why.

In "The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness," social psychologist Jonathan Haidt examines the rise in adolescent mental health issues, particularly since the early 2010s. He makes a strong case that today’s epidemic of anxiety, depression, and self-harm among young people isn’t some random, unexplainable phenomenon. It’s the result of two major shifts: the decline of play-based childhood and the rise of a phone-based childhood.

He uses data to show that around 2012, adolescent mental health took a sharp turn for the worse. And it wasn’t just a small blip. Rates of depression, anxiety, and self-harm skyrocketed. What changed? Social media became the dominant force in kids’ lives, replacing real-world interactions with curated online personas, endless scrolling, and algorithm-driven addiction.

Haidt’s most powerful metaphor compares social media to Mars. He asks us to imagine we were sending our children to Mars. Would we send them to this unknown world without studying every possible risk? Without a plan to ensure their safety? Of course not. But we’ve sent them into the virtual world with zero preparation—no rules, no protections, and most importantly, no understanding of the long-term consequences.

That hit me hard. Because he’s right.

Reading this book made me rethink my own habits. If I want my kids to have healthier, more balanced lives, I need to model that behavior. Disconnect. More time outside. Real social interactions. Less bubble wrap, more scraped knees.

If you’re a parent, teacher, or just someone who cares about the next generation, I can’t recommend this book enough. It’s not just about screens - it’s about fighting for the kind of world we want our kids to grow up in.

Some of My Favourite Quotes:

“My central claim in this book is that these two trends—overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world—are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.”

“We decided that the real world was so full of dangers that children should not be allowed to explore it without adult supervision... At the same time, it seemed like too much of a bother to design and require age-appropriate guardrails for kids online, so we left children free to wander through the Wild West of the virtual world...”

“When we make children’s safety a quasi-sacred value and don’t allow them to take any risks, we block them from overcoming anxiety, learning to manage risk, and learning to be self-governing, all of which are essential for becoming healthy and competent adults.”

“If we really want to keep our children safe, we should delay their entry into the virtual world and send them out to play in the real world instead. … “Unstructured free play addresses—head-on—making friends, learning empathy, learning emotional regulation, learning interpersonal skills.”

“The Great Rewiring devastated the social lives of Gen Z by connecting them to everyone in the world and disconnecting them from the people around them. … This is the great irony of social media: the more you immerse yourself in it, the more lonely and depressed you become.”

"Girls who say that they spend five or more hours each weekday on social media are three times as likely to be depressed as those who report no social media time."

“The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation.”

"The companies are competing against each other for users’ attention, and, like gambling casinos, they’ll do anything to hold on to their users even if they harm them in the process."

“…we might refer to smartphones and tablets in the hands of children as experience blockers."

Kids Need the Real World (Jonathan Haidt)