I’m not even going to try to sum up everything that Jonathan Haidt writes about in his book The Anxious Generation, but at least I thought I’d share one of the concepts that stood out to me.
Overall, Haidt writes about the immense threat that smartphones and especially social media pose to childhood—and thus society as a whole. Social media robs us of our attention span and ability to focus, and creates levels of social comparison orders of magnitude greater than ever experienced before in human history. In addition, social media apps (and other attention-grabbing apps) are engineered to be addicting, while being offered to increasingly younger audiences. Haidt calls for collective action and government regulation to combat the mental health crisis caused by smartphones and social media.
Something that stuck out to me specifically—although the entire book was eye-opening and mind-blowing—was when Haidt began to speak about what children need most to develop fully into healthy, happy adults:
Free, unsupervised, and unmediated play.
Antifragility
‘Antifragile’ is a term coined by Nassim Taleb to describe things that require adversity in order to grow. Systems that grow stronger by being knocked around a bit.
Haidt uses the immune system as an example of “the ultimate antifragile system”. The immune system must have exposure to dirt and germs early on in order to become strong as the body matures. If the immune system does not get this, it will remain weak and unable to respond well to stronger germs and contagions later in life.
Similarly, children must have exposure to difficulty and the potential for small levels of physical harm—cuts and bruises or similar things—in order to be able to handle themselves as they get older. Haidt cautions parents of the dangers of overprotecting their children, warning that not allowing your children to have any difficulty or risk at all, even in the name of safety and protection, can result in children being weak and unable to cope with difficulty later on in life.
Haidt gives another example, using young trees as a metaphor for children:
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...[This] is a perfect metaphor for children, who also need to experience frequent stressors in order to become strong adults.
When young saplings and small trees are exposed to harsh winds, the jostling loosens up the roots along with the soil around the roots, allowing for the roots to grab a more firm hold, deeper than they were previously able to reach. Similarly, children need to have a chance to be knocked around, experiencing both physical and emotional difficulties, in order to grow stronger and more competent.
Too much structure
Personally, I’m a very large advocate for having structure in a child’s life. Structure and discipline are extremely important for a child to develop time management skills and self-control.
However, something that Haidt says should have as little externally-imposed structure in a child’s life as possible is play. Part of the joy of playing as a child is the ability to make up your own rules and be creative. But the most important thing is playing in a group. When a group of children are playing together (without overbearing supervision), they begin to negotiate the rules and solve disputes themselves, developing crucial social skills that will help them be able to collaborate and compromise as adults. When adults are too involved in this play—or when the play is resigned to an online game with its own rules and limits—children don’t get the same chance to develop the skills they need to relate to others.
Haidt says that children need many more opportunities for free and unsupervised play than what has become the norm today. Helicopter parenting and overprotection are quickly becoming common and are actually doing more harm than good. It’s tempting to quickly intervene and “set things right” when there’s any dispute about rules among children playing, but many times that robs the children of the chance to learn to negotiate with other people themselves. Children need to learn how to work through problems, not that a higher power will always come and perfectly set everything straight 100% of the time. By giving children some agency, they begin to develop confidence that they can do things themselves. Obviously there should still be guidance and nurturing, but they need to be able to put into action what they’ve learned.
In addition to social skills, children—especially young boys—learn how to manage stress and risk through rough-and-tumble physical play. By running, jumping off of things, climbing, and other forms of “risky” play, children learn how to measure risk and reward, in addition to developing physical coordination. Yes it was fun and exhilarating to jump off the higher platform on the playground, but skinning my knee once I hit the mulch wasn’t so fun. Maybe I won’t jump off the highest platform, so I don’t get hurt more. But maybe jumping off the lower platform is still fun and worth the risk of a bruise. If children didn’t learn how to manage risk like this, it would make it much harder for them to weigh difficult decisions later in their lives and decide the best course of action in spite of risk. When you’re too protected from all forms of harm, everything looks scary.
Weigh the risks
Jonathan Haidt makes an undeniable case for children to gain the freedom of childhood again in The Anxious Generation. When you begin to count the costs of social media and “The Great Rewiring,” as Haidt puts it, the harms begin to stack up. Overprotection outside and free reign online make a vicious combination that robs children of necessary social interaction while overexposing them to social comparison, never mind the polarized and radical ideas they may unknowingly be exposed to online.
If you’re a parent, consider giving your child more outdoor freedom. At the very least strive to minimize their screen time until their upper teenage years. If you’re a child or a teenager, consider taking measures to minimize your own social media usage and spend more time in real life social situations. Yes, social media has many harms associated with it, but more than anything else is the opportunity cost of the time that could be spent elsewhere, doing something meaningful.
Let’s enjoy play again.