IN 2018, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt co-wrote a book called The Coddling of the American Mind. When students arrive on university campuses, they expect to be given “safe spaces,” with administrations cultivating a classroom atmosphere where heterodox ideas should be discouraged or outright banned lest they offend or “do violence.”

Although aimed at students on college campuses, their critique was levelled at trends and tendencies in the American family. “Helicopter parenting” refers to many parents’ tendency to try and raise their children in ultra-safe environments. Any obstacle, danger, or failure must be actively suppressed.

Today, Haidt has come out with his fourth book, The Anxious Generation, which delves deeper into the anxiety epidemic now plighting young adults in the West. The book is a long-anticipated addition to the conversation surrounding Gen Z, those born after 1995, and the trends, habits, and forces that have made it one of the most anxious generations to walk the earth. This is from the book’s website:

The mass migration of childhood into the virtual world has disrupted social and neurological development. This disruption includes social anxiety, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. Alarmed by the rates of anxiety and depression in adolescents, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt wrote The Anxious Generation. The book explores these growing phenomena and attributes them to the transition from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood.

The Anxious Generation

The book takes a stark look at the suffering of young people and connects it crucially with the advent of the smartphone, along with the devolution of a “play-based” childhood. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary writes in her review of the book in the New York Times,

With parents and children alike stuck in “Defend mode,” kids were in turn blocked from discovery mode, where they face challenges, take risks and explore — the building blocks of anti-fragility, or the ability to grow stronger through adversity. Compared to a generation ago, our children are spending more time on their phones and less on, well, sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. While fewer hospital visits and teen pregnancies are obvious wins, less risk-taking overall could stunt independence.

-Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, Book Review: ‘The Anxious Generation’ by Jonathan Haidt – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The book releases closely with Abigail Shrier’s new book Bad Therapy, which argues that Gen Z’s mental health struggles have more to do with parents handing their kids over to therapists, who proceed to prematurely diagnose them and cause them to unnaturally fixate on their emotions. This, Shrier argues, actually undermines kids’ ability to overcome obstacle and keeps them fragile and fearful.

There’s much to consider with both these books, but each is getting at one of the most pressing issues of our time, which is the unprecedented levels of anxiety and depression reported by young people. There is no question we’ve moved to a fundamentally virtual kind of life that places less emphasis on outdoor activity and in-person connection.