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

by Jonathan Haidt

One can certainly feel some kinds of awe while using a smartphone. Indeed, you can watch endless YouTube videos about people who performed heroic deeds (moral beauty). You can find the most extraordinary photos and videos ever taken of the world’s most beautiful places. These experiences are valuable. But as we’ve seen before, our phones drown us in quantity while reducing quality. You watch a morally elevating short video, feel moved, and then scroll to the next short video, in which someone is angry about something. You see a photo of Victoria Falls, taken from a drone that gives you a better view than you could ever get in person, and yet, because the entire image is displayed on a screen the size of your hand, and because you did no work to get to the falls, it’s just not going to trigger as much awe as you’d get from hiking up to a much smaller waterfall yourself. If we want awe to play a larger and more beneficial role in our lives, we need to make space for it. As a result of doing my own awe walk the same week my students did them, I now take my AirPods out of my ears when I’m walking in any park or natural setting. I no longer try to cram in as many audiobooks and podcasts, at 1.5 times normal speed, as my brain can receive. As for our children, if we want awe and natural beauty to play a larger role in their lives, we need to make deliberate efforts to bring them or send them to beautiful natural areas. Without phones.