Book Review: The Anxious Generation

When I posted on Instagram that I was currently reading The Anxious Generation, I very quickly received several DMs from friends that they were curious about the book, that they wanted to read it too, or that they wanted to know what I thought when I had finished. So here’s what I think:

Every parent or educator I know who has read this book or is interested in this book is someone I already know to be thoughtful in their approach to parenting or teaching. I think this is a book that you probably pick up because you are already inclined to agree with its basic premise. If you think phone access for young people today is just fine and don’t have any qualms about your pre-teen getting an Instagram account, you probably won’t care what Haidt has to say about the matter. But if, like many parents, you do wonder and worry about these things, you’ll find a lot to agree with here.

There’s been some question about Haidt’s research, particularly, as I understand, his use of fairly small sample sizes. I haven’t delved into all of that though I did get the sense in certain parts that Haidt was leaning heavily on examples that supported his pre-conceived theories. I can’t speak to the science backing many of his claims but what Haidt really relies on is something many of us already feel. Constant access to internet and social media – something we carry around in our pockets and can even bring to bed with us – isn’t bettering our lives. And it certainly isn’t going to make our children’s lives better.

Haidt’s basic premise is that children today, particularly since about 2010 with the advent of the smart phone are having phone childhoods (he includes tablets and other devices in this) when they should be having play childhoods. Beginning with Generation Z, kids have been spending more time online which actually means they are more disconnected from their peers and therefore are becoming more anxious and depressed. At the same time, with the rise of what Haidt calls “safetyism”, kids are spending less time outdoors and less time in free, unstructured play. Our kids are more monitored in real life than any before but not as monitored online as they should be.

This is bigger than any individual parenting decision and while Haidt does offer some outlines of what might be appropriate times to introduce screens and phones into our homes, he also looks at the social constructs that have led us to this moment in history. It’s all pretty fascinating. I’ve talked about some of this issues before when reviewing books like Small Animals and Last Child in the Woods. I’m a parent with kids just at the cusp of growing independence and I was encouraged to find that a lot of what we already do as parents is in line with Haidt’s suggestions. Kids need freedom to play at the park with their friends. They need to know they can be independent and take responsibility for themselves. Let them walk to school alone. Send them to the grocery store to buy milk, even if you don’t need it.

I found myself nodding along because these are things we’ve started doing in small doses in our family. At the same time, I felt like Haidt wasn’t always well in touch with the realities of allowing these things. I can let my kids walk to school on their own because we live in a small community and we’ve put in the years of walking with them so that they know the route well and are recognized by many in our neighbourhood. To be able to do so is a privilege. Haidt mentions a few times that phone usage is actually much higher among children in single parent families or in lower income areas but he never really addresses how we as a society can change that.

Schools are obviously also a big part of how phone usages can be tackled. My girls attend a school that was one of the first in our district to ban phones in class, a policy that is now province-wide. When that decision was announced I was relieved because my kids are young enough that phones at school aren’t a big issue for them yet and this would, hopefully, buy us a few more years before they became one. As of now, none of my kids’ friends have phones either but that time is probably coming soon.

For me, one of the most interesting sections of Anxious Generation was when Haidt addresses the issue of spiritual elevation and degradation. While he comes at it from an atheist perspective, he makes the argument that certain experiences elevate our inner being – our souls – while others degrade them. Hiking a mountain or lunch with a good friend are elevating experiences. Viewing someone’s instagram story of their hike or brunch doesn’t have the same affect. In fact, Haidt argues, time spent online actually has more of a degrading affect. This is hard to quantify and likely easy to repute but I think many of us also can understand what Haidt is saying. Scrolling endlessly online doesn’t feel good or satisfy us. We may be learning things but we’re not engaging with the world the way that we were meant to. Not to mention that time spent online can mean exposure to horrible things that we as humans aren’t meant to witness. Now imagine what that’s doing to the inner development of our children. It’s an interesting argument and one I haven’t seen made quite in this way before.

As I said, this book probably benefits from a certain bias in the readers most likely to pick it up. But one day, when my kids probably will ask whether or not they can have a phone of their own, I’ll be glad to have a little more thought and research to back up my answer when I tell them, “No”.