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

by Jonathan Haidt

Research note: In previous decades, the digital divide has resulted in socioeconomic disparities, with wealthier families having quicker adoption and greater access to technology such as computers, laptops, and televisions. Although the digital divide still exists, it often plays out in unexpected ways in the United States. For example, despite 57% of U.S. adults with an income less than $30,000 having high-speed broadband, compared with 83% of those earning between $30,000 and $100,000, lower-income families increasingly rely on smartphones for internet, leading to heavier smartphone usage. Notably, smartphone ownership among tweens (8-to-12-year-olds) and teens (13-to-18-year-olds) doesn’t vary significantly across social classes, though time spent on screens does. Tweens from lower-income families (who make less than $35,000 a year) spend about three hours more per day on screens than their wealthier peers, while lower-income teens spend about two hours more. Moreover, many tech executives, including those from Silicon Valley, send their children to private schools like the Waldorf School of the Peninsula where screen use is prohibited. This is in contrast with many public schools that are advancing 1:1 technology programs, trying to give every child their own device. Additionally, many lower-income parents work multiple jobs, and they are more likely to raise a child in a single-parent household, leaving less time and energy to invest in monitoring the quantity and con...