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

by Jonathan Haidt

In Sum The human brain contains two subsystems that put it into two common modes: discover mode (for approaching opportunities) and defend mode (for defending against threats). Young people born after 1995 are more likely to be stuck in defend mode, compared to those born earlier. They are on permanent alert for threats, rather than being hungry for new experiences. They are anxious. All children are by nature antifragile. Just as the immune system must be exposed to germs, and trees must be exposed to wind, children require exposure to setbacks, failures, shocks, and stumbles in order to develop strength and self-reliance. Overprotection interferes with this development and renders young people more likely to be fragile and fearful as adults. Kids must have a great deal of free play to develop, and they benefit from risky physical play, which has anti-phobic effects. Kids seek out the level of risk and thrill that they are ready for, in order to master their fears and develop competencies. Risk-taking online may not have comparable anti-phobic effects. In the 1980s and especially the 1990s, parents in Anglo countries became more fearful for many reasons, including changes in the media ecosystem and news cycle. They lost trust in each other, they started spending far more time supervising their own children, and they did more parenting in defend mode, seeing risks and threats everywhere. The worship of “safety” above all else is called safetyism. It is dangerous because it...

The discover vs. defend reminded me of growth vs. fixed mindset I found this section more convincing than the previous sections