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

by Jonathan Haidt

According to one major U.S. survey, these high rates of cyberbullying have persisted (though have not increased) between 2011 and 2019. Throughout the period, approximately one in 10 high school boys and one in five high school girls experienced cyberbullying each year.[49] In other words, the move online made bullying and harassment a larger part of daily life for girls. While the percentage of teens who reported being cyberbullied each year might not have risen during the 2010s, the ways in which students could perpetrate and experience relational aggression has changed as teens joined new platforms that offered new ways to spread rumors and mount attacks. Social media makes it easy for anyone, of any age, to set up multiple anonymous profiles, which can be used for trolling and reputational destruction. All of it takes place in a virtual world that parents and teachers can rarely access or understand. Additionally, as smartphones accompany adolescents to school, to the bathroom, and to bed, so too can their bullies.