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

by Jonathan Haidt

There was a widely shared sense of techno-optimism; these products made life easier, more fun, and more productive. Some of them helped people to connect and communicate, and therefore it seemed likely they would be a boon to the growing number of emerging democracies.

But the tech industry wasn’t just transforming life for adults. It began transforming life for children too. Children and adolescents had been watching a lot of television since the 1950s, but the new technologies were far more portable, personalized, and engaging than anything that came before.

When faced with growing evidence that their products were harming young people, they mostly engaged in denial, obfuscation, and public relations campaigns.[3] Companies that strive to maximize “engagement” by using psychological tricks to keep young people clicking were the worst offenders. They hooked children during vulnerable developmental stages, while their brains were rapidly rewiring in response to incoming stimulation.

This included social media companies, which inflicted their greatest damage on girls, and video game companies and pornography sites, which sank their hooks deepest into boys.[4] By designing a firehose of addictive content that entered through kids’ eyes and ears, and by displacing physical play and in-person socializing, these companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale. The most intense period of this rewiring was 2010 to 2015, although the story I will tell begins with the rise of fearful and overprotective parenting in the 1980s and continues through the COVID pandemic to the present day.

That set the effective age of “internet adulthood” at 13, for reasons that had little to do with children’s safety or mental health.[5] But the wording of the law doesn’t require companies to verify ages; as long as a child checks a box to assert that she’s old enough (or puts in the right fake birthday), she can go almost anywhere on the internet without her parents’ knowledge or consent. In fact, 40% of American children under 13 have created Instagram accounts,[6] yet there has been no update of federal laws since 1998.

A few of these companies are behaving like the tobacco and vaping industries, which designed their products to be highly addictive and then skirted laws limiting marketing to minors.

While the reward-seeking parts of the brain mature earlier, the frontal cortex—essential for self-control, delay of gratification, and resistance to temptation—is not up to full capacity until the mid-20s, and preteens are at a particularly vulnerable point in development.

This book tells the story of what happened to the generation born after 1995,[9] popularly known as Gen Z, the generation that follows the millennials (born 1981 to 1995). Some marketers tell us that Gen Z ends with the birth year 2010 or so, and they offer the name Gen Alpha for the children born after that, but I don’t think that Gen Z—the anxious generation—will have an end date until we change the conditions of childhood that are making young people so anxious.[10]

Thanks to the social psychologist Jean Twenge’s groundbreaking work, we know that what causes generations to differ goes beyond the events children experience (such as wars and depressions) and includes changes in the technologies they used as children (radio, then television, personal computers, the internet, the iPhone).[11]

A fourth trend began just a few years later, and it hit girls much harder than boys: the increased prevalence of posting images of oneself, after smartphones added front-facing cameras (2010) and Facebook acquired Instagram (2012), boosting its popularity. This greatly expanded the number of adolescents posting carefully curated photos and videos of their lives for their peers and strangers, not just to see, but to judge.

Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and—as I will show—unsuitable for children and adolescents.

They spent far less time playing with, talking to, touching, or even making eye contact with their friends and families, thereby reducing their participation in embodied social behaviors that are essential for successful human development.

The Great Rewiring is not just about changes in the technologies that shape children’s days and minds. There’s a second plotline here: the well-intentioned and disastrous shift toward overprotecting children and restricting their autonomy in the real world. Children need a great deal of free play to thrive.

I propose that we view the late 1980s as the beginning of the transition from a “play-based childhood” to a “phone-based childhood,” a transition that was not complete until the mid-2010s, when most adolescents had their own smartphone.

As the transition from play-based to phone-based childhood proceeded, many children and adolescents were perfectly happy to stay indoors and play online, but in the process they lost exposure to the kinds of challenging physical and social experiences that all young mammals need to develop basic competencies, overcome innate childhood fears, and prepare to rely less on their parents. Virtual interactions with peers do not fully compensate for these experiential losses. Moreover, those whose playtime and social lives moved online found themselves increasingly wandering through adult spaces, consuming adult content, and interacting with adults in ways that are often harmful to minors.

My central claim in this book is that these two trends—overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world—are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.

A few notes about terminology. When I talk about the “real world,” I am referring to relationships and social interactions characterized by four features that have been typical for millions of years: They are embodied, meaning that we use our bodies to communicate, we are conscious of the bodies of others, and we respond to the bodies of others both consciously and unconsciously. They are synchronous, which means they are happening at the same time, with subtle cues about timing and turn taking. They involve primarily one-to-one or one-to-several communication, with only one interaction happening at a given moment. They take place within communities that have a high bar for entry and exit, so people are strongly motivated to invest in relationships and repair rifts when they happen.

In contrast, when I talk about the “virtual world,” I am referring to relationships and interactions characterized by four features that have been typical for just a few decades: They are disembodied, meaning that no body is needed, just language. Partners could be (and already are) artificial intelligences (AIs). They are heavily asynchronous, happening via text-based posts and comments. (A video call is different; it is synchronous.) They involve a substantial number of one-to-many communications, broadcasting to a potentially vast audience. Multiple interactions can be happening in parallel. They take place within communities that have a low bar for entry and exit, so people can block others or just quit when they are not pleased. Communities tend to be short-lived, and relationships are often disposable.

The key factor is the commitment required to make relationships work. When people are raised in a community that they cannot easily escape, they do what our ancestors have done for millions of years: They learn how to manage relationships, and how to manage themselves and their emotions in order to keep those precious relationships going.

This book has four parts. THEY explain the mental health trends among adolescents since 2010 (part 1); the nature of childhood and how we messed it up (part 2); the harms that result from the new phone-based childhood (part 3); and what we must do now to reverse the damage in our families, schools, and societies (part 4).

Part 1 has a single chapter laying out the facts about the decline in teen mental health and wellbeing in the 21st century, showing how devastating the rapid switch to a phone-based childhood has been. The decline in mental health is indicated by a sharp rise in rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm, beginning in the early 2010s, which hit girls hardest. For boys, the story is more complicated. The increases are often smaller (except for suicide rates), and they sometimes begin a bit earlier.

Part 2 gives the backstory. The mental health crisis of the 2010s has its roots in the rising parental fearfulness and overprotection of the 1990s. I show how smartphones, along with overprotection, acted like “experience blockers,” which made it difficult for children and adolescents to get the embodied social experiences they needed most, from risky play and cultural apprenticeships to rites of passage and romantic attachments.

In part 3, I present research showing that a phone-based childhood disrupts child development in many ways. I describe four foundational harms: sleep deprivation, social deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. I then zoom in on girls[*] to show that social media use does not just correlate with mental illness; it causes it, and I lay out the empirical evidence showing multiple ways that it does so. I explain how boys came to their poor mental health by a slightly different route. I show how the Great Rewiring contributed to their rising rates of “failure to launch”—that is, to make the transition from adolescence to adulthood and its associated responsibilities. I close part 3 with reflections on how a phone-based life changes us all—children, adolescents, and adults—by bringing us “down” on what I can only describe as a spiritual dimension. I discuss six ancient spiritual practices that can help us all live better today.

In part 4, I lay out what we can and must do now. I offer advice, based on research, for what tech companies, governments, schools, and parents can do to break out ...

Gen Z has several great strengths that will help them drive positive change. The first is that they are not in denial. They want to get stronger and healthier, and most are open to new ways of interacting. The second strength is that they want to bring about systemic change to create a more just and caring world, and they are adept at organizing to do so (yes, using social media).

Jean Twenge’s 2017 book, iGen. At the time, however, nearly all evidence was correlational: Soon after teens got iPhones, they started getting more depressed. The heaviest users were also the most depressed, while those who spent more time in face-to-face activities, such as on sports teams and in religious communities, were the healthiest.[15]

Nonetheless, there are four reforms that are so important, and in which I have such a high degree of confidence, that I’m going to call them foundational. They would provide a foundation for healthier childhood in the digital age. They are: No smartphones before high school. Parents should delay children’s entry into round-the-clock internet access by giving only basic phones (phones with limited apps and no internet browser) before ninth grade (roughly age 14). No social media before 16. Let kids get through the most vulnerable period of brain development before connecting them to a firehose of social comparison and algorithmically chosen influencers. Phone-free schools. In all schools from elementary through high school, students should store their phones, smartwatches, and any other personal devices that can send or receive texts in phone lockers or locked pouches during the school day. That is the only way to free up their attention for each other and for their teachers. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence. That’s the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults.

Epictetus, in the first century CE, lamenting the human tendency to let others control our emotions: If your body was turned over to just anyone, you would doubtless take exception. Why aren’t you ashamed that you have made your mind vulnerable to anyone who happens to criticize you, so that it automatically becomes confused and upset?[19]

Marcus Aurelius’s advice to himself, in the second century CE: Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind.[20]

It is for anyone who wants to understand how the most rapid rewiring of human relationships and consciousness in human history has made it harder for all of us to think, focus, forget ourselves enough to care about others, and build close relationships.

when James was eleven, his parents bought him a PlayStation, because they had to find something for him to do at home. At first it improved James’s life—he really enjoyed the games and social connections. But as he started playing Fortnite for lengthening periods of time, his behavior began to change. “That’s when all the depression, anger, and laziness came out. That’s when he started snapping at us,” the father told me. To address James’s sudden change in behavior, he and his wife took all of his electronics away. When they did this, James showed withdrawal symptoms, including irritability and aggressiveness, and he refused to come out of his room. Although the intensity of his symptoms lessened after a few days, his parents still felt trapped: “We tried to limit his use, but he doesn’t have any friends, other than those he communicates with online, so how much can we cut him off?”

You can see a sudden and very large upturn in major depressive episodes, beginning around 2012. (In Figure 1.1, and in most of the graphs to follow, I have added a shaded area to make it easy for you to judge whether or not something changed between 2010 and 2015, which is the period I call “The Great Rewiring.”) The increase for girls was much larger than the increase for boys in absolute terms (the number of additional cases since 2010), and a hockey stick shape jumps out more clearly. However, boys started at a lower level than girls, so in relative terms (the percent change since 2010, which I’ll always use as the baseline), the increases were similar for both sexes—roughly 150%. In other words, depression became roughly two and a half times more prevalent.

The first clue is that the rise is concentrated in disorders related to anxiety and depression, which are classed together in the psychiatric category known as internalizing disorders. These are disorders in which a person feels strong distress and experiences the symptoms inwardly. The person with an internalizing disorder feels emotions such as anxiety, fear, sadness, and hopelessness. They ruminate. They often withdraw from social engagement.

In contrast, externalizing disorders are those in which a person feels distress and turns the symptoms and responses outward, aimed at other people. These conditions include conduct disorder, difficulty with anger management, and tendencies toward violence and excessive risk-taking.

Across ages, cultures, and countries, girls and women suffer higher rates of internalizing disorders, while boys and men suffer from high...

A second clue is that the surge is concentrated in Gen Z, with some spillover to younger millennials.

There is no trend for any of the four age-groups before 2012, but then the youngest group (which Gen Z begins to enter in 2014) starts to rise sharply. The next-older group (mostly millennials) rises too, though not as much, and the two oldest groups are relatively flat: a slight rise for Gen X (born 1965–1980) and a slight decrease for the baby boomers (born 1946–1964).

Anxiety and its associated disorders seem to be the defining mental illnesses of young people today.

Anxiety affects the mind and body in multiple ways. For many, anxiety is felt in the body as tension or tightness and as discomfort in the abdomen and chest cavity.[16] Emotionally, anxiety is experienced as dread, worry, and, after a while, exhaustion. Cognitively, it often becomes difficult to think clearly, pulling people into states of unproductive rumination and provoking cognitive distortions that are the focus of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), such as catastrophizing, overgeneralizing, and black-and-white thinking. For those with anxiety disorders, these distorted thinking patterns often elicit uncomfortable physical symptoms, which then induce feelings of fear and worry, which then trigger more anxious thinking, perpetuating a vicious cycle.

The second most common psychological disorder among young people today is depression, as you can see in figure 1.2. The main psychiatric category here is called major depressive disorder (MDD). Its two key symptoms are depressed mood (feeling sad, empty, hopeless) and a loss of interest or pleasure in most or all activities.[17]

For a diagnosis of MDD, these symptoms must be consistently present for at least two weeks.

He was certainly right that we need to look at multiple indicators to know if mental illness really is increasing. A good way to do that is to look at changes in measures not self-reported by teens. For example, many studies chart changes in the number of adolescents brought in for emergency psychiatric care, or admitted to hospitals each year because they deliberately harmed themselves. This can either be in a suicide attempt, commonly done by overdosing on medications, or in what is called nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), often done by cutting oneself without the intent to die. Figure 1.4 shows the data for visits to emergency rooms in the United States, and it shows a pattern similar to the rising rates of depression that we saw in figure 1.1, especially for girls. The rate of self-harm for these young adolescent girls nearly tripled from 2010 to 2020. The rate for older girls (ages 15–19) doubled, while the rate for women over 24 actually went down during that time (see online supplement).[21] So whatever happened in the early 2010s, it hit preteen and young teen girls harder than any other group.

Adolescent suicide in the United States shows a time trend generally similar to depression, anxiety, and self-harm, although the period of rapid increase begins a few years earlier.

For suicide, the rates are nearly always higher for boys than for girls in Western nations, while attempted suicides and nonsuicidal self-harm are higher for girls, as we saw above.[24]

Communication Technology Adoption Figure 1.6. The share of U.S. households using specific technologies. The smartphone was adopted faster than any other communication technology in history. (Source: Our World in Data.)[25]

Figure 1.6 shows us something important about the internet era: It came in two waves. The 1990s saw a rapid increase in the paired technologies of personal computers and internet access (via modem, back then), both of which could be found in most homes by 2001. Over the next 10 years, there was no decline in teen mental health.[26] Millennial teens, who grew up playing in that first wave, were slightly happier, on average, than Gen X had been when they were teens. The second wave was the rapid increase in the paired technologies of social media and the smartphone, which reached a majority of homes by 2012 or 2013.

Smartphones are very different. They connect you to the internet 24/7, they can run millions of apps, and they quickly became the home of social media platforms, which can ping you continually throughout the day, urging you to check out what everyone is saying and doing.

while I agree that the 21st century is off to a bad start, the timing does not support the argument that Gen Z is anxious and depressed because of objective facts about rising national or global threats.

People don’t get depressed when they face threats collectively; they get depressed when they feel isolated, lonely, or useless.