“The Anxious Generation” Author: Social Media Is Spreading Mental Illness | Amanpour and Company

The two downfalls of humanity: social media and reality TV

I nearly lost a dear friendship over a Facebook fight in 2019. When I (52 at the time) found myself reaching for my phone at every stoplight to check the latest post, I realized I had a serious problem, and gave it up. My mental and emotional state improved dramatically and I’ve never been back!

If theres an age limit for alcohol and drugs there should be one for social media.

here's an additional point. i work in software (consumer apps). for larger companies and smaller startups. the weird thing is: i've met no one who is passionate about solving this problem (except me!). you'd think people in the industry would 1) acknowledge the problem, 2) be moved by the suffering of children and adults, 3) be motivated to make it better. but for some wild reason, the people in this industry (including the VCs, the execs, the PMs, the devs, the designers) are all practically blind to this as a problem. they are 100x more motivated by "user engagement" than by user health.

This is an extremely important topic. I hope we address this urgently for our children, as the author is suggesting. And I hope that we expand this discussion to include the negative impact on adults as well.

I have two kids in their mid 30's. This anxiety is not just in teens, it continues into young adulthood ....as he mentioned, the pre-frontal cortex isn't developed until ape 25 years of age. That part of the brain is also responsible for judgement and decision making! Let's think about that. We have more than enough evidence of that from research and our own observations! It's really good to hear the negative impact spelled out in detail instead of being just theories.

Also factor in the subconscious effect of having no hope in the future to live the quality of life and opportunities your parents had ….. no chance of a house, good job, climate change, AI etc etc , the future must look very grim and scary .

I am in my 70s so all these new 'toys' / 'tools' that have come along in the last 20 years haven't quite affected me the same as it has affected younger people. However, I am very aware of the strange addictive quality of things like social media or even of the internet itself. I do find myself drawn to my computer or phone to find out what's going on and to connect with people. I do think this has affected my attention span in that I seem more likely to hop from one thing to another without watching each one thoroughly. It's like being let loose in a candy store. Mind you that has also had an opposite effect wherein I find there is TOO MUCH choice and I am overwhelmed to the point that I back off and choose nothing. I find that this has happened with music. When I was a teen and young adult I occasionally bought records (LPs). I listened to those records a lot. As technology progressed I moved on to audio tapes and then CDs. Somewhere along the line I became overwhelmed with the vast choice of music so easily available to me and strangely the effect on me was to listen to music less and less. I now listen to much less music than I did back in the 1960s. I don't think this is an age thing. I think this has more to do with an overabundance of availability. Fortunately, even though I have a smart phone I don't tend to. use it like most people do. I don't have it with me all the time and I usually have it off unless I want to use it. Also I leave it on mute most of the time. Mind you at my age there aren't many people trying to reach me on my phone. I take my phone with me when I go out so that my husband can contact me if necessary. I also use it to keep notes and to take photos of products I am buying or am considering buying. But it doesn't dominate my life.

I made the conscious decision years ago to stay with flip phones, and have never regretted it. People sometimes give me grief for it, and I don't give a sh*t. Keep getting the word out, Jonathan Haidt!!!. We need to contain and regulate social media and anything else that is harmful to kids. If adults want to screw up their lives via smart phones and all the pathways they provide that derail their mental health, so be it. But give the kids a chance, at least.

What blows my mind is all the people I see at the gym, in the POOL, JACUZZI, SAUNA & STEAM ROOM on their f@#$ing phones. If you can't be without your phone for ONE HOUR to just RELAX and BE without your damn phone, then you've got a serious problem. Its like people don't know what the hell to do without them in their hand every second of every day. People even have them when they go to the bathroom!!! Its INSANE.

It's not hard to put on limits. You do this thing called parenting and say no. That's what I did. No, you can't have a smartphone. No, you can't wear makeup. I don't give a damn what her momma is doing. I'm not her momma, I'm yours. If it's an emergency, the school will call me. Can y'all please start raising your kids? You're making me the bad guy, I don't care, but that's what you're doing.

11:00 it’s not just kids. I remember 10 years ago when I had to evacuate a skyscraper during a fire. People were slowing down the line in the stairwell because everybody was checking their phones.

My kids are now understanding the impact of social media and internet content. They are mid 30’s now and seem happier than before they reduced usage. Mom and dad are also. The Stoic philosophy basically said you cannot care about everything at once, so don’t. Even if you feel guilty not empathizing.

The "collective action" didn't work for my go-go boots, make-up or dating. No, teaches resiliency, independence, gratitude, patience, and not being egocentric, privileged, and spoiled No, is not child abuse. 😊 Kids may lose being on a phone but parents loss is not spending all the short and precious time of childhood with their kids as a family. Balance Kids independence with strong family ties. Good parents set boundaries.

Only thing I'd disagree with is that we're all dominated by this tech. Not all of us. I refuse point-blank to have a smartphone, and no amount of subtle coercion to have one (phone-based payment systems, encryption, etc) will EVER induce me to have one. Texts and calls only for me - and on my terms. Which is why, when I go out, I never take my phone if I want to be quiet and have privacy (most of the time, basically) And even with my computer at home, I only use the internet selectively and for set periods of time. That's it. Nevertheless, I get called a 'dinosaur'. No, I'm not a dinosaur. I know how this tech works and what it can do. Which is why I'm also not a lemming.

Glad to see Prof. Haidt get some daylight. on this! He's been talking about this for almost a decade!

1. I am not a Haidt fan, for lots of reasons. 2. HE IS RIGHT ABOUT THIS, and it is urgent.

Jonathan's book is good, but it pairs great with the workbook called 30 Days Without Social Media by Harper Daniels. It's good to identify the problem and support it with evidence, but finding solutions to the social media issue will be a problem, as it's so integrated into everything...literally everything...governments, businesses, people's identities, institutes, dating, etc.

This was the better of his several recent interviews on this subject. Teachers saw this coming “right out of the box”. And, from what’s reported, Silicon Valley has had no problem separating their own kids from tech.

We need the government to start funding public service commercials. Like back in the day we had the "do you know where your children are" commercials. We need the same for social medias effects on kids