The by line is 'How the rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness' which catches your attention immediately. John Haidt (pronounced as Height) is a social psychologist and a Professor of Ethical Leadership in New Work University School of Business and has written books (like the Happiness Hypothesis I think).
According to Haidt, the Great Rewiring of childhood happened in 2010 with the advent of smart phones. Until then, relationships and social interactions had features such as - embodied (used bodies to communicate), synchronous (happened at the same time), one on one and one on several communications happened (only one interaction happened at one time) and had a high bar for entry and exit (people invested in relationships). Once smartphones entered, social interactions became disembodied, asynchronous, one to many communication and had a low entry and exit barrier. Basically it went from being focused to spraying all over.
Haidt says this switch from play based childhood to phone based childhoods led to decline of mental health. Smart phones are experience blockers. He advocates no smart phones before high school, no social media before 16, phone free schools and encourages unsupervised play. Haidt says that between 2010-15, unrestricted access to social media without any serious verification of age led to Generation Z being anxious, depressed, self harming and suicidal. This hit girls harder - even boys registered an increased rate of depression and anxiety and suicide.
Children need free play in their childhood for developing social skills like conflict resolution, physical skills . Through play children connect sync, take turns. Social media on the other hand inhibits attunement and leaves heavy users starving for social connection. Social learning occurs during a sensitive period of 9-15 years.
Children can be in discover mode or defend mode. In discover mode they scan for opportunities, are like kids in a candy shop, think for themselves and grow. In defend mode they are constantly scanning for danger, have a scarcity mindset, cling to team and have a keep me safe attitude. Children are by nature anti-fragile and need exposure to setbacks, failures, stumbles to develop strength and self reliance. Risky play is important to master fears and develop competencies. Fearful parents make safety the most important thing which makes it hard for children to deal with risks, conflicts.Children thrive when they have a play-based childhood versus phone based one.
Haidt says that early puberty is a period of brain rewiring and we must not let strangers and algorithms choose them. Safetyism blocks experience - children need to overcome anxiety, manage risks and self govern. Smart phones pushes out all forms of non phone based experience which they need.
The great rewiring has four foundational harms - social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation and addiction. Teens spend more than 7 hours on screens (not including school and homework) and the opportunity cost is heavy - like for example face to face settings have dropped from 122 minutes a day to 67 minutes a day. It affects quantity and quality of sleep which in turn causes depression, anxiety, irritability, cognitive deficit and poor learning, lower grades, more accidents and death from accidents. Staying focused is a sign of maturity and smart phones give 5-10 minutes before interrupting and interferes with development of executive functions. Heavy users develop insomnia and depression. The onset of fb, high speed internet affected mental health of girls more than boys and they prefer visually oriented platforms than text based ones. Two major motivations are agency (desire to stand out and leave an effect on the world) and communion (desire to connect and develop a sense of belonging). Boys chose more agency activities while girls chose more communion based activities. Boys suffered by withdrawing time and effort from the physical world, facing risk of failure to launch, shunning risk, moving social lives online etc.
Phone based life puts you down instead of uplifting you spiritually. Its changes the way we feel, judge and relate to others. when people move between profane and sacred we realise that the virtual world is entirely profane.
Some ways to achieve spiritual upliftment would be to create rituals such as eating together, practicing stillness meditation, practice self transcend-ency, non judgment, being in nature, finding that god shaped hole which years for spiritual meaning and elevation.
Haidt urges the government and tech companies to change priorities, correct under protection online and over protection off line, have better age verification procedures and encourage free play and recess. Schools can be phone-free, play-full, have let grow projects, have better recess and playgrounds.
Parents can be gardeners, not carpenters and allow unsupervised free play, delay phone based childhood, encourage camps and such where they can take risks, increase mobility, exchange programs, have a free range childhood more likely to produce confident, competent young adults with less anxiety. Children between 18-24 months should have little or no screen time, between 5-9 years limited screen time, in mid school use parallel content, provide clear limits and no device zones and look out for signs of addiction.
I quite liked the ideas he shared in the book and think they make sense. For starters I need to get away from the phone and social media where I am barely present but can withdraw some more. For more info check out AnxiousGeneration.com
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