Life on Mars

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt (Penguin, 2024)

Reviewed by Grace Mackey

Part I.

The life of a 13-year-old with an Instagram account drastically differs from that of a 13-year-old without one. To most people, this is undeniable. Gen Z is now the poster child of this reality as the only generation that has grown up from birth with access to social media. Gen Z describes social media as both a way to connect, laugh, and stay informed and a source of comparison, insecurity, and anxiety. Outside of their feedback, it doesn’t take very much research to recognize a problem in the lives of American teenagers, particularly when it comes to their mental health. A quick Google search shows rising rates of suicide and mental illness in Generation Z; it is considered a crisis. Has the drastic change in childhood with the addition of social media caused the drastic rise in mental health issues? Not everyone agrees on the answer to this question, but it is worth asking. From eating disorders, self-harm, suicide, depression, and anxiety, the stakes are high for younger generations, and there is work to be done.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt believes we have experienced a “great rewiring” since 2010. There has been a simultaneous decline in “play-based childhood” and the rise of “phone-based childhood” (53). Children are now overprotected in the physical world and under-protected in the virtual world. He begins the book with the analogy that we are essentially raising our children on Mars. Haidt analyzes the mental health of teenagers and children since 2010 and, using studies, finds social media to be the main culprit for the rapid increase in anxiety, depression, and suicide. He also points to various studies to advocate for riskier experiences in childhood. He then breaks down social media’s psychological damage on children and teenagers, including its specific influence on boys and girls. Haidt ends the book with a lengthy list of solutions for healthier childhood, calling for changes in parenting, education, technology companies, and government regulations. In his final section titled “Bring Childhood Back to Earth,” Haidt wants all hands on deck.

The Anxious Generation is not Haidt’s first time making cultural waves. The social psychologist has a history of analyzing Gen Z. In 2018, Haidt and lawyer Greg Lukianoff released The Coddling of the American Mind. They found that many young people believe they have the right to protection from all hurtful speech on college campuses. The authors argue that this harms student learning, development, and democracy. Haidt also wrote The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (2006), which explores lasting human happiness by studying philosophy, theology, and positive psychology. Haidt has always paid close attention to societal shifts and this current focus is on how Gen Z has been affected.

Most Americans acknowledge the mental health crisis that Haidt describes, especially since COVID-19. For youth and young adults ages 10 to 24, suicide is the second leading cause of death in the United States. The CDC recognizes youth mental illness, substance abuse disorder, and serious mental illness as legitimate health crises in the U.S. and notes significant overlap between them. These changes have coincided with the rise of cellphones and social media and a decline in independence for most children.

In 1994, IBM released the first smartphone, followed by the iPhone in 2007. The earliest social media sites emerged in the late 1990s, and, by 2006, MySpace was visited more than any other website on the planet. Since then, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok have all emerged with millions of users. Haidt highlights 2010 as a turning point throughout his book because social media not only existed on smartphones, but it included the “like” or “retweet” option and the front-facing camera, causing users to post more pictures of themselves (14). He describes this as a  shift that led children to dedicate their time to “managing what became their online brand” and sees it as no coincidence that 2010 precisely when teen mental health began to plummet (14).

Haidt has received two major critiques for his work, which he directly addresses in The Anxious Generation. The first is that he has wildly oversimplified the causes of mental illness, leaving out global warming, terrorism, school shootings, and several others. To this, Haidt responds that if these events had caused a mental health crisis, it would have hit millennials just as hard. He also argues that “impending threats to a nation or generation (as opposed to an individual) do not historically cause rates of mental illness to rise” (37). The second major critique of The Anxious Generation is that the book might over-alarm parents without sufficient evidence for his claims. Other experts in his field argue that Haidt’s sheer quantity of evidence does not equal quality and that he cherry-picked evidence to fit his narrative.  Experts who oppose Haidt’s claims argue that while social media’s rise does coincide with teen mental health issues, it is not proven to cause them. However, Haidt addresses and argues that the trends and studies he includes show a real crisis and an undeniable correlation between the rise of social media and mental illness. For readers skeptical of the mental health epidemic altogether, he uses studies showing both “self-reported suffering” and “behavioral changes” in 2010 as evidence of an undeniable shift in the lives of adolescents (32).

Haidt is a solution-oriented writer who outlines tangible ways to fix the problem for future generations. He calls for stricter government regulation of technology companies to stop them from purposefully hooking children on their products. He calls for “phone-free” and “play-full” schools (267). He calls for more parental guardrails around phone and social media use, describing what each age group can psychologically handle. His solutions are extensive and seem rather doable. Haidt does not expect childhood to be saved exclusively by parents, teachers, the government, or big technology companies; rather, it takes a unique effort from all of them. Yet he spends time breaking down helpful parenting practices for each age group so that childhood is experienced properly. While Haidt includes government and education policy changes in his solutions, he mostly relies on smaller changes that any parent can enforce, such as allowing children time of unsupervised play. He summarizes his solutions into two main phrases: “speak up" and “link up” (291).

Haidt’s claims in The Anxious Generation are certainly getting attention and, in some areas, are causing people to act. Since many of Haidt’s recommended reforms require a group effort, parental action groups have formed to push for play-based childhood, particularly in schools. Haidt’s push for phone-free schools has been implemented in some areas, but, as he mentions, it takes guardian approval, and not every parent is excited to give that because of safety concerns. The Anxious Generation has also led to potential action from the government. In late May, the Surgeon General issued an advisory about the mental health effects of social media, sparking more debate among researchers about what the evidence shows. While other psychologists and social scientists don’t deny the mental health epidemic Haidt talks about, they claim that by blaming smartphones, adults are ignoring other major world problems that could be affecting teenagers. The debate has also taken a political turn, with the Senate passing the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would force online platforms to design their products in a way that would lower online bullying, sexual exploitation, and eating disorder promotion. Free speech advocacy groups are pushing back on the act because they are concerned with government regulation of social media content. This mirrors a similar debate over Florida’s March law banning children under 14 from having a social media account. Overall, Haidt has placed social media and how it’s regulated at the center of many ongoing debates.

Even if Haidt’s argument about social media and mental health is true, it is worth asking if any changes to large social media companies will be made. Haidt puts together a striking set of evidence and claims, but he is far from the first person to raise concern about social media and mental health. Social media’s adverse effects, especially on children, have become increasingly apparent, yet social media platforms continue to grow. In 2021, a former Facebook data scientist testified before the Senate that Facebook was strategically creating addictive platforms for teenagers. Facebook essentially blatantly admitted to knowingly creating a product that harmed children, and the whole world watched it happen. Yet most Americans continue to use Facebook, and other addictive apps like TikTok continue to grow. The proposed TikTok ban in the U.S. faces legal challenges based on the First Amendment as citizens push back on the app being taken away. Now, the same battle is being fought over the KOSA, with citizens, including members of Gen Z, resisting government regulation around social media because of censorship concerns. Large social media companies can feel invincible to policy change, and it’s possible that Gen Z themselves are protecting it. A key reality that Haidt seems to forget is that Gen Z actually likes social media, and many of them are willing to protect it

If anything will stick with the reader in The Anxious Generation, it is Gen Z’s testimonies. They speak powerfully, and they are angry. Haidt tells the story of people like Alexis Spence, who got Instagram when she was 11 and endured years of eating disorders and depression because of it. As an adult, Spence and her parents took Meta to court. He quotes Emma Lembke, the co-chair of Design It For Us, an organization that advocates for safer social media platforms, who stood before the U.S. Senate and said that she and other members of Gen Z “share the frustration of being portrayed as passive victims of Big Tech” (293). For most of the book, Haidt discusses Gen Z as children and, therefore, victims. Through Spence and Lembke’s stories’ he acknowledges their influence as adults. However, what he does not acknowledge is their influence as not only users, but fans of social media.

If we stick to Haidt’s Mars analogy, adult Martians are everywhere, and the Earth is other-worldly to them. Haidt uses Gen Z’s stories to prove his claims about childhood but insufficiently addresses the question: What about the people who like Mars? Or have a career there? What if they sell beauty products to their fellow Martians and make more money than they ever would at a desk job on Earth? If so much of Gen Z grew up on Mars, it is likely that many of them would consider it to be their home. Many users see social media as a way to stay connected with their friends or make new online connections. Some of Gen Z see social media as a place where they can be accepted.  For example, LGBTQ groups and free speech advocates are pushing back against KOSA because they see social media as a safe space where they are free to express themselves. These groups are also afraid of LGBTQ content being censored by conservative leaders. Political censorship is a concern among some of Gen Z since it is now a common place for them to express their political beliefs and advocate for change. In The Anxious Generation, we hear testimonies from Gen Z that align with Haidt’s criticisms of social media. Yet there is another side of Gen Z that not only enjoys social media but has placed a great deal of their time and identity into it. Haidt addresses this in the book, but it is already the case that, for better or for worse, much of Gen Z has made a home on Mars.

Part II.   One Martian’s Perspective

As a member of Gen Z, this was not a light read. When you spend your teens owning a smartphone, you grow used to hearing your parents and teachers blame your problems on a phone— It gets tiresome. I understand the skepticism towards Haidt and the concern that he is a grumpy old man tired of watching the online world expand into something foreign to him. I had some of that skepticism. Regardless, I picked up his book because I was genuinely curious if he offered explanations of anxiety that I hadn’t heard before. This past year, I started therapy because I needed help managing my anxiety disorder. While reading, it didn’t take long for my skepticism to fade and alarm to set in. I was struck by how deeply I resonated with what Haidt described.  I quickly believed Haidt was onto something, and many of my personal struggles were deeply related.

I first recognized that I had anxiety around 15 years old. I knew something was off internally— It wasn’t uncommon; I could see it in many of the girls around me. In The Anxious Generation, I saw myself and my peers in numerous descriptions of isolation, eating disorders, and addiction. To my relief, the book continued past just describing what I had seen and felt but provided reasons and solutions. Navigating what is behind a disorder like anxiety can be an exhausting process, so I found myself grateful for a book that gave me an actual culprit: social media. While my own parents were not particularly overprotective in the physical world, having an Instagram account tore me away from what could have likely been more hours of unsupervised play and important social interactions with kids my age. I believe Haidt is correct about the need for more unsupervised play, but for me, the damage was done when I was a teenager, and most of my social life began to exist online. Social media offered me far too many ways to track what people thought of me and trained me in the art of curating a perfect self-image. Haidt’s critics were unconvincing to me because of how deeply I resonated with how he wrote about social media and the mental health of teenage girls; to me, it felt as if he was saying something that, deep down, many of us already know to be true. I was shocked that anyone was denying the negative effect of social media on teenagers because it has always seemed so obvious to me.

Initially, I was angry after finishing the book. Haidt described companies of people that purposefully manipulated children using their apps, and I was one of them. When I was a young girl, I was really frustrated with my own anxiety and often felt that I had no one to blame except myself. According to Haidt, the blame game could get specific. I thought of the range of ways I have seen social media hurt people I grew up with and realized that when a child is up against a company like Meta that is specifically targeting them, they will lose.

I got angry reading this book, but I also became hopeful. For me, a large part of growing up with mental health issues has involved an increased desire to find solutions. You take more ownership of the parts you can control and grow out of on your own and get help with the parts you can’t. This process has been a key part of my own adulthood, and I have witnessed it in the lives of my friends and family with similar stories. After reading this book, I took an extensive break from Instagram and continue to be cautious with my own social media use. This is the case for many of my peers as well; we know social media’s benefits and dangers because when you grow up with them in your back pocket, you have no choice but to learn them. With truly warranted caution towards social media, I am hopeful that Gen Z could form the right approach to social media as parents. Haidt doesn’t necessarily solve the complex questions that come from continuing to have social media accounts as adults, nor is his book made to do so. For those of us who grew up on social media, adulthood brings a greater ability to recognize the good and the bad that come from it and sort through what we want to be a part of. Like I said in part I, despite their mixed reviews regarding mental health, Gen Z likes social media. Knowing the right way to participate in it is hard. It has a large place in the world now and feels rather unavoidable. However, I support Haidt’s argument that childhood is delicate and must be brought back to earth. As an adult, I am confident that my peers and I can properly navigate our relationships with social media. As teenager, I tried, and I failed, and most teenagers will. It is far too consuming and overwhelming. Gen Z has the advantage of understanding social media more than even people like Haidt. His perspective from the outside is helpful, but Gen Z adults know the ins and outs of social media in a way that no other generation does. I am hopeful that my generation can recognize the boundaries that need to exist around social media as the generation that did not have them. There is much to be learned from this mistake.

Grace Mackey is a Senior at Palm Beach Atlantic University, studying English and Journalism. She has published creative writing in Palm Beach Atlantic's Living Waters Review and Sigma Tau Delta's Rectangle, and has written for The Beacon Today, Palm Beach Atlantic's news publication.