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

by Jonathan Haidt

After considering the four reasons that girls are particularly vulnerable, we can see why social media is a trap that ensnares more girls than boys. The lure is the promise of connecting with friends—enticing for girls who have strong needs for communion—but the reality is that girls are plunged into a strange new world in which our ancient evolved programming for real-world communities misfires continuously. Girls in virtual networks are subjected to hundreds of times more social comparison than girls had experienced for all of human evolution. They are exposed to more cruelty and bullying because social media platforms incentivize and facilitate relational aggression. Their openness and willingness to share emotions with other girls exposes them to depression and other disorders. The twisted incentive structures of social media reward the most extreme presentations of symptoms. And finally, the progress that many societies have made to reduce sexual violence and harassment in the real world is being counteracted by the facilitation of harassment and exploitation by companies that put profits above the privacy and safety of their users.