The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

by Jonathan Haidt

We know that Facebook intentionally hooked teens using behaviorist techniques thanks to the Facebook Files—the trove of internal documents and screenshots of presentations brought out by the whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021. In one chilling section, a trio of Facebook employees give a presentation titled “The Power of Identities: Why Teens and Young Adults Choose Instagram.” The stated objective is “to support Facebook Inc.–wide product strategy for engaging younger users.” A section titled “Teen Fundamentals” delves into neuroscience, showing the gradual maturation of the brain during puberty, with the frontal cortex not mature until after age 20. A later photo shows an MRI image of a brain with this caption: The teenage brain is usually about 80% mature. The remaining 20% rests in the frontal cortex …. At this time teens are highly dependent on their temporal lobe where emotions, memory and learning, and the reward system reign supreme. A subsequent slide shows the loop that Facebook’s designers strive to create in users and notes the points of vulnerability (see Figure 5.4). Many other slides in the presentation indicate that the presenters were not trying to protect the young woman in the center from overuse and addiction; their goal was to advise other Facebook employees on how to keep her “engaged” for longer with rewards, novelty, and emotions. Suggestions include making it easier for teens to open multiple accounts and implementing “stronger paths to related in...