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‘Childhood has been rewired’: Professor Jonathan Haidt on how smartphones are damaging a generation [1]
['Fraser Nelson', 'Written By', 'Fraser Nelson Is Editor Of The Spectator', 'Sean Thomas', 'Mary Wakefield', 'Andrew Tettenborn', 'Julie Burchill', 'Jacob Rees-Mogg', 'Gavin Mortimer', 'Katy Balls']
Date: 2023-11-01 10:43:17+00:00
Something strange is happening with teenagers’ mental health. In Britain, the US, Australia and beyond, the same trend can be seen: around the middle of the last decade, the number of young people with anxiety, depression and even suicidal tendancies started to rise sharply. Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, noticed a change when students who were brought up with smartphones started to arrive on campus. They were angrier. More fragile. More likely to take offence.
Social media, he concluded, was shaping their view that society is in permanent conflict, which in turn led to ideas about microaggressions and competitive victimhood. All this, he found, was damaging young people’s mental health. He is working on a book, due out next year, and is ready to share his thesis.
‘This is real. This is the biggest mental health crisis in all of known history for kids’
We meet in unusual circumstances: over a videolink and in front of an audience at a conference in London. What he says draws gasps and applause from those watching, though his message is quite horrifying.
He argues that the tools of social media are just too sharp for young minds. On digital platforms teens parade themselves, often to an audience of strangers, and this is leading to addiction, paranoia and despair. For girls, the effect is especially acute. ‘What we’re seeing is a very sharp, sudden change in girls’ mental health all around the Anglosphere and the Nordic countries,’ he says. A big change was evident from 2013, when physical friendship groups started to be supplanted by smartphones and online chat. ‘But you cannot grow up in networks. You have to grow up in communities.’
It is striking that boys who have religion in their lives seem to be less susceptible. ‘If you’re a kid who’s a religious conservative, on average, your mental health is not really much worse than it was ten years ago.
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[1] Url:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/childhood-has-been-rewired-professor-jonathan-haidt-on-how-smartphones-are-damaging-a-generation/
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