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

by Jonathan Haidt

It is also important to note that our alarm bell did not just evolve as a response to physical threats. Our evolutionary advantage came from our larger brains and our capacity to form strong social groups, thus making us particularly attuned to social threats such as being shunned or shamed. People—and particularly adolescents—are often more concerned about the threat of “social death” than physical death.

The evolutionary race to learn the most made it maladaptive to reach puberty as fast as possible. Rather, there was a benefit to slowing things down. The brain doesn’t grow much in size during late childhood, but it is busy making new connections and losing old ones.

If we want awe to play a larger and more beneficial role in our lives, we need to make space for it.

We need to change the incentives so that companies behave differently, as has happened in many other industries. Think of food safety regulations in the Progressive Era, or automotive safety regulations in the 1960s, both of which contributed to the long-running decline in children’s mortality rates.[2]

Those are the two whales: going phone-free and giving a lot more unstructured free play.

If school is too far to walk or ride a bicycle, consider “drive to five.” You drop kids off, with other kids, at a spot that is five minutes away from school. Let them walk that last leg by themselves. (Schools can help organize this. It also reduces traffic congestion near the school.)