Our team at Henrico CASA loves to read… and there’s no better time to read than the summer! In upcoming weeks we’ll be highlighting some of our recent favorites in the hopes that you will enjoy the themes and connections to our work as child advocates.
Synopsis
“After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?”
In The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, author and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, examines mental health data, investigates the nature of childhood, and then explains what he refers to as a cultural transition from ‘play-based’ to ‘phone-based’ childhoods. He makes a case for how this “rewiring” has led to a mental health crisis for Gen Z and beyond. He also poses collective action that would lead to healthier childhoods.
Why I Recommend…
I’ll be honest, I selected this book for both professional and personal reasons. As CASA advocates, we frequently serve children coping with anxiety. Our role is to stand up for children’s overall wellbeing and their well-being clearly includes their mental health.
However, I am also raising four teens who fall into this “anxious generation.” For years I have been fighting the good fight, trying to stand firm against the pressures of technology and social media. I grabbed this book thinking it was going to confirm all of my own thoughts and ideas about how social media is negatively impacting mental health.
It did just that, showing charts and graphs correlating the introduction of the smart phone to significant increases in mental health problems and decreases in mental well-being. The book also made me aware of even more concerns regarding the impact of devices on childhood, adolescence, and adulthood including:
- Devices and social media are “experience blockers”! They are preventing us from in-person, real world experiences. These experiences are important building blocks for social and emotional development. And they are what make life more meaningful and enjoyable to us as adults. In an attempt to connect with “everyone” online, we may disconnect from the people and relationships that are closest and most valuable to us.
- As adults, our own preoccupation with our phones is impacting our children. Our distraction, short attention span, and limited eye contact limits their healthy attachment to us as their primary caregivers. It can also impair their social development and future relationship skills.
- Ongoing, pinging notifications are a distraction. Even when silenced, the frequent vibrations are shown to disrupt sustained thinking. This clearly affects our focus and derails productivity at work and school. It also disrupts quality sleep!
About halfway through the book I switched from reading to scanning, because there was so much data to digest! It felt a bit overwhelming and, honestly, depressing… but then, the author introduced a section of ideas for collective action that we can pursue, together, to take back our children’s childhoods. And that left me with a feeling of hope!
You can find more about the book here. And while you are searching, see how 13 became the age of “internet adulthood.
