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

by Jonathan Haidt

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.

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

we are overprotecting our children in the real world while underprotecting them online.

As soon as Gen Z arrived on campus, college counseling centers were overwhelmed.[7] The previously exuberant culture of millennial students in discover mode gave way to a more anxious culture of Gen Z students in defend mode.

For instance, many of the trees they planted to create a rain-forest ecosystem grew rapidly but then fell over before reaching maturity. The designers had not realized that young trees need wind to grow properly. When the wind blows, it bends the tree, which tugs at the roots on the windward side and compresses the wood on the other side. In response, the root system expands to provide a firmer anchor where it is needed, and the compressed wood cells change their structure to become stronger and firmer.

Trees that are exposed to strong winds early in life become trees that can withstand even stronger winds when full grown. Conversely, trees that are raised in a protected greenhouse sometimes fall over from their own weight before they reach maturity.

Researchers who study children at play have concluded that the risk of minor injuries should be a feature, not a bug, in playground design.

Brussoni is on a campaign to encourage risky outdoor play because in the long run it produces the healthiest children.[26] Our goal in designing the places children play, she says, should be to “keep them as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible.”[27]

A related factor is a declining sense of social cohesion throughout the late 20th century, which had many causes. When people no longer knew their neighbors, they no longer had “eyes on the street” from adults who could look out for kids.[38]

But when adults step away and stop helping each other to raise children, parents find themselves on their own. Parenting becomes harder, more fear-ridden, and more time consuming, especially for women,

Communicating by text supplemented by emojis is not going to develop the parts of the brain that are “expecting” to get tuned up during conversations supplemented by facial expressions, changing vocal tones, direct eye contact, and body language.

But since the early 20th century, scholars have noted the disappearance of adolescent rites of passage across modern industrial societies.