Is social media the cause of the childhood anxiety epidemic?

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

Reviewed by Don McCulloch.

Jonathan Haidt addresses the causality of the surge in childhood anxiety with his book, The Anxious Generation:  How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. As a practicing clinical psychologist and a university professor, I can attest to this being one of the signal issues of our time. This book adds to the compendium of evidence-based literature documenting this national epidemic. Haidt addresses the problem and what he posits as the causes in a comprehensive and encyclopedic fashion. Haidt presents both research evidence and personal anecdotal evidence, along with charts, graphs, and occasional pictures in favor of his theory. All in all, it is an impressive read, but at times the book pushes a little too far in the service of proving his point.

Regardless of whether Haidt proves his point regarding causality, it is certainly commendable that Haidt brings attention to the epidemic of anxiety on our hands. It is unquestionable that Haidt’s selected variables are related to negative childhood outcomes. Additionally, towards the end of the book, Haidt gives realistic action points in what he calls collective action for healthier childhoods. Those include the support for the United Kingdom’s enacting age-appropriate design guidelines, stronger age verification, and greater corporate responsibility for content moderation. He supports schools banning cell phones and allowing for more recess and play time. Finally, he gives age/developmental tailored guidelines for parents. All of this is immensely important as our children’s future is at stake.

In his very prescient 2005 book, Last Child in the Woods, author Richard Louve argued that decreased exposure of children to nature was causing harm to their mental development and mental health. This book was well received and had a bit of a cult following among some educators. Essentially, children need to get outside more. Haidt in his book, does not mention Louve. At first, this is surprising, but on further reflection it makes sense as Louve’s work does not fit completely into Haidt’s general narrative. Haidt’s primary argument is that a confluence of three factors – lack of play based childhoods, over-protective parenting, and smart phones are causing anxiety in young people. Obviously, there were problems in childhood before the introduction of smart phones which picks up post-2010, yet Haidt’s argument is very much tied to a timeline that comes after Louve’s observations. This is important because Haidt “selects” the variables he feels are the cause (and I would suggest misses others). Haidt believes that social media (via smart phones) is the real culprit. In separate chapters he aptly documents the rise the problem, the deleterious effect social media has on girls (he says it harms girls more), and he discusses the failure of boys to launch, addressing the negative impact of gaming and pornography.

The main problem that I have (and some other reviewers have had) is his heavy-handed use of his mountains of data as proof of causality. Reading The Anxious Generation causes anxiety. His approach is to provide a firehose of data that reaches a tipping point to where the reader is forced to “cry uncle” that Haidt’s identified variables are indeed the cause of the epidemic. I felt the key sentence in the book is when he states, “Taken as whole, dozens of experiments that Jean Twenge, Zach Rausch, and I have collected confirm and extend the patterns found in the correlational studies: Social media is a cause of anxiety, depression and other ailments, not just a correlate” (148).  This is a provocative statement and Haidt knows it. His attitude in the book seems to be – you are not going to like this but here is medicine you need to swallow. To that end the reader feels that the author is exercising a tone of superiority. Even in agreement Haidt can be patronizing. I truly enjoyed a full chapter on the idea that social media overuse is connected to a spiritual void, but I did not like him re-assuring me that as a scientist he is an atheist. This had an air of superiority and did not add to his argument. The self-referential material did not have its desired effect. This may be seen in the sentence quoted above where he talks about the research “I collected.” He does this a lot. He is here to prove his agenda. He has thrown down a gauntlet, and this is where the book fails. Had he been more dispassionate, I felt he would have more converts, but perhaps a title like “some possible factors that may be causing present day anxiety” would not be a best seller.

My critique of his argument is that we do not prove causality by just repeating and adding more correlation studies or quasi-experimental studies. According to the book’s narrative, a confluence of lack of childhood play, overprotective parenting, smart phone access to social media that came together after the 2010s and now we have created an anxious generation. This time space continuum argument is itself a fallacy. To illustrate the problem, I would state that this argument is no different than Robert Kennedy Jr.’s argument where he also gives mounds of data that the introduction of MMR vaccines co-occurred with a notable spike in autism during the same time period. More and more correlation studies do not equal causality. Of course, Haidt is no RFK Jr., and perhaps to avoid any kookiness label, the tone of the book is one of unassailable authority as it relates to the research on his variables. However, it seems reasonable that there could be other factors that have led to the anxiety epidemic, beyond Haidt’s triad. Louve had an idea. Allow me to posit two more variables that that weaken Haidt’s causal argument by their absence. First, the decrease in the number of intact family units. The anxious generation is one that is being raised during a time of divorce acceptance and the research has shown, but has been largely ignored, that this is a factor in negative mental health outcomes in childhood (see Judith S. Wallerstein, Julia A. Lewis and Sandra Blakeslee, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: The Landmark 25 Year study, 2001). Single parent households are at an all-time high. As a side note, families are smaller than ever before. Are kids more likely to be anxious when do not have as many siblings? Second, the anxious generation has been raised at a time of religious decline. Haidt points out the social media use increases and does not fill our spiritual void. Perhaps, low religious commitment is a cause of anxiety?

Causal relationships, even that of social media consumption and anxiety are hard to prove. You cannot experiment directly on humans to prove causality, and you do not need to. For years, lawsuits were brought against big tobacco companies for cigarettes causing cancer, but they were dismissed for decades for lack of causal evidence. There was, of course, mounds of correlational evidence. Eventually, there came a tipping point, and juries, using common sense, made the connection that smoking causes cancer. That is now fully part of societal consciousness. It is amazing to watch movies from the 1950s and 1960s where the actors smoke non-stop. Now smoking is relatively rare. Someday there will be movies made of this generation and everyone will be on their phones. How odd will that look? Perhaps, like smoking, there will be a societal shift and constant cell phone and social media will not be cool anymore. Haidt’s ideas for social action to create healthier childhoods are commendable. One idea mentioned in the book is to ban cell phones from the school setting. As an educator I love the idea, but that suggestion conflicts with overprotective parenting. In light of recent school shootings, parents demand to be in constant phone contact with their children. Parents are not ready to set those limits.

In summary, Jonathan Haidt’s book is an informed read on the what the author sees as the causing the present anxiety epidemic of this generation. I would recommend it as a worthy and interesting read. I believe it will become part of the large deposit of evidence that in time—and it will take time—will add to a tipping point of addressing the causes of anxiety in young people.

Don McCulloch is an associate professor of psychology at Palm Beach Atlantic University and a practicing licensed clinical psychologist. His specialty is in working with parents who have been cut off by their adult (and often anxious) children.