The Anxious Generation

The book has four parts.

Part I of the book is called “The Tidal Wave.” The first (and only!) chapter in that first part is called “The Surge of Suffering.” That passage is from that first chapter.

As Jonathan points out, the graph in the book has a HOCKEY STICK-shaped growth in the percent of teenage girls who had at least one major depressive episode in the prior year. That steep increase occurs between 2010 and 2014.

Jonathan makes the case that “The Great Rewiring” occurred precisely during that time.

A few pages later he says: “With so many new and exciting virtual activities, many adolescents (and adults) lost the ability to be fully present with the people around them, which changed social life for everyone, even for the small minority who did not use these platforms. That is why I refer to the period from 2010 to 2015 as the Great Rewiring of Childhood. Social patterns, role models, emotions, physical activity, and even sleep patterns were fundamentally recast, for adolescents, over the course of just five years. The daily life, consciousness, and social relationships of 13-year-olds with iPhones in 2013 (who were born in 2000) were profoundly different from those of 13-year-olds with flip phones in 2007 (who were born in 1994).”

After making a compelling case for the “Great Rewiring of Childhood” driving the SURGE in suffering among our next generation (while accounting for other potential factors) in Part I of the book, in Part II Jonathan walks us through “The Backstory: The Decline of the Play-Based Childhood” then in Part III he walks us through the details of “The Great Rewiring: The Rise of the Phone-Based Childhood” before giving us potential solutions in Part IV: “Collective Action for Healthier Childhood.”

P.S. Before we move on, I want to share a quote from Dr. Georgia Ede’s Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind to make sure we’re all EYES WIDE OPEN about the extraordinary scope of the challenges we face and the urgent need to create solutions.

Ede tells us: “We’re in the midst of a global mental health crisis. Nearly one billion people are living with a mental health disorder, including one in five of the world’s children and adolescents. Every year, 700,000 people take their own lives, and suicide is now the second leading cause of death among people in their teens and twenties. Depression and anxiety alone cost the global economy nearly three billion dollars a day. And these numbers don’t include the countless people with milder health concerns like brain fog, irritability, and joylessness. Psychiatric problems of all kinds are becoming so commonplace that we are beginning to think of poor mental health as normal and inevitable.”

ONE BILLION people. That number always blows me away and breaks my heart. I repeat: If you or someone you love is struggling with anxiety and/or depression, I believe your NUTRITION *must* be a part of your strategy to conquer those challenges. There’s simply no way we can expect to function optimally (physically or psychologically!) if we’re getting 60% of our calories from ultraprocessed foods like the average American.

Taleb coined the word ‘antifragile’ to describe things that actually need to get knocked over now and then in order to become strong.”

That’s from the second chapter in Part II. After we explore “What Children Need to Do in Childhood,” we take a look at “Discover Mode and the Need for Risky Play.”

As we briefly discussed in our last Idea, Jonathan’s thesis is that we OVERPROTECT our kids in the real world and UNDERPROTECT them from/in the virtual world. Our “play-based” childhood—during which we learn extraordinarily important social skills!—has been replaced by a “phone-based” childhood—during which we both miss out on the free-play learning opportunities while saturating our consciousness in the unhealthy modeling of behaviors by influencers and other strangers. (To state the obvious: That’s not a winning combo.)

One of the reasons I love Jonathan and his wisdom so much *might* be influenced by the fact that we both focus on the power of antifragility. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a tattoo of the word on his left forearm, but very few other authors spend any time chatting about this.

He also talks about it in The Coddling of the American Mind in which he shares similar wisdom and also says: “Taleb opens the book with a poetic image that should speak to all parents. He notes that wind extinguishes a candle but energizes a fire. He advises us not to be like candles and not to turn our children into candles: ‘You want to be the fire and wish for the wind.’”

Now… Right after the passage above, Jonathan tells us: “Well-intentioned parents who try to raise their children in a bubble of satisfaction, protected from frustration, consequences, and negative emotions, may be harming their children. They may be blocking the development of competence, self-control, frustration tolerance, and emotional self-management. Several studies find that such ‘coddling’ or ‘helicopter parenting’ is correlated with later anxiety disorders, low self-efficacy (which is the inner confidence that one can do what is needed to reach one’s goals), and difficulty adjusting to college.

Children are intrinsically antifragile, which is why overprotected children are more likely to become adolescents who are stuck in defend mode. In defend mode, they’re likely to learn less, have fewer close friends, be more anxious, and experience more pain from ordinary conversations and conflicts.”

Before we move on, I want to emphasize the fact (as I did in our Notes on The Coddling of the American Mind) that kids (and all of us!) are INTRINSICALLY ANTIFRAGILE.

In fact, with asterisks for the potential negative impact of *chronic stressors,* we NEED STRESSORS to become our best selves. We need the Wisdom to see that “stress can be enhancing” and then we need the Discipline to put that wisdom into practice.

P.S. Although he doesn’t use the word “antifragile” in his book 10 to 25, David Yeager talks about the parenting style that will help your kids activate their potential. The “Protector” style tries to wrap their kids up in bubble wrap—which, as we know, doesn’t help. The effective style is what he calls “The Mentor Mindset” in which we hold our kids to high standards WHILE offering them the warmth and wise support to HIT those high standards. Result? Antifragility.

I never knew that about cuckoo birds. Fascinating, eh? And… What a frightening metaphor for the “opportunity costs” of our kids spending most of their waking lives staring at their phones.

In a chapter called “The Four Foundational Harms,” Jonathan walks us through what kids lose when they spend as much time as they do immersed in the virtual worlds of their phones—which, for the record, for teens aged 13 to 18, is close to 50 hours per week.

As CRAZY as 50 hours per week is, even THAT is an “underestimation” as “a third of teens say they are on one of the major social media sites ‘almost constantly.’”

Here’s a SUPER quick look at “The Four Foundational Harms”:

HARM #1: SOCIAL DEPRIVATION. Jonathan tells us: “Children need a lot of time to play with each other face to face, to foster social development.” One of themes he comes back to MOST OFTEN is the importance of in-person “free play.” It’s REALLY (!) important.

Later he asks: Isn’t connecting on Instagram, Snapchat and online video games “just as good? No. As Jean Twenge has shown, teens who spend more time using social media are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and other disorders.”

HARM #2: SLEEP DEPRIVATION. Jonathan tells us: “Sleep-deprived teens cannot concentrate, focus, or remember as well as teens who get sufficient sleep.” So, how much do they need? “Teens need more sleep than adults—at least nine hours a night for preteens and eight hours a night for teens.”

HARM #3: ATTENTION FRAGMENTATION. “This never-ending stream of interruptions—this constant fragmentation of attention—takes a toll on adolescents’ ability to think and may leave permanent marks in their rapidly reconfiguring brains.” Does being a heavy user of smartphones and video games cause ADHD? “It appears so.”

HARM #4: ADDICTION. Jonathan walks us through the behavioral design hacks that social media sites use to get us “hooked.” He references Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus (see Notes) and tells us “The creators of these apps use every trick in the psychologists’ tool kit to hook users as deeply as slot machines hook gamblers.” Check out our Notes on Irresistible and The Scarcity Brain for more. And, of course, watch The Social Dilemma if you haven’t yet!

That’s from one of the most powerful chapters called “Spiritual Elevation and Degradation.”

Jonathan shares his humanity as he begins the chapter by saying: “In the previous chapters, I described a great deal of research on harms to children and adolescents caused by the phone-based childhood. But now I’d like to write less as a social scientist than as a fellow human being who has felt overwhelmed, personally and perpetually, since around 2014.”

Then he proceeds to tells us about the sense of “spiritual degradation” he has felt permeate our culture, telling us: “When people see morally beautiful actions, they feel as though they have been lifted up—elevated on a vertical dimension that can be labeled divinity. When people see morally repulsive actions, they feel as though they have been pulled downward, or degraded. A phone-based life generally pulls people downward.”

Then he outlines SIX “spiritual practices” we can engage in to counter those downward pulls.

These include: 1. Shared Sacredness, 2. Embodiment, 3. Stillness, Silence, and Focus, 4. Transcending the Self, 5. Be Slow to Anger, Quick to Forgive, and 6. Find Awe in Nature.

That’s from the final section: “Collective Action for Healthier Childhood” in which Jonathan presents his ideas on how we can solve our current crisis by affecting change within government, tech companies, schools, and as parents. Of course, check out the book for the details.

For now, I want to emphasize the fact that a) We CAN do something; b) It is URGENT that we do so; and c) We can only solve this challenge TOGETHER. I also want to highlight a couple things for EDUCATORS and PARENTS as we’re blessed to serve a LOT of you.

Educators: Jonathan CONSTANTLY emphasizes the power of *removing* phones and INCREASING free play. Get the book for more. He also says: “Any school whose leaders say that they care about fostering belonging, community, or mental health, but that hasn’t gone phone-free, is standing on a whale, fishing for minnows.”

Parents: Jonathan CONSTANTLY emphasizes the need for LESS protection in the real world and MORE in the virtual world. Get the book for more. And: “If you do one thing… in the real world, it should be to give your children far more unsupervised free play” and “in the virtual world, it should be to delay your children’s full entry into the phone-based childhood by delaying when you give them their first smartphone (or any ‘smart’ device).”

The challenges we face are profound. The need for each of us to humbly yet Heroically stand up and play our roles well have never been greater. Let’s do it. For our kids. Together. TODAY.