Anxious Kids

In his book Anxious Generation, the author identifies the root cause of the troubles this generation of kids faces. He is focused on  young people, children, “tweens,” and adolescents, who grew up during and after the early 2010s, when smartphones and social media became widespread: 

According to Jonathan Haidt, these kids find themselves in a double bind: in the real world, parents have become overprotective, curbing children’s independence and opportunities for unsupervised play. Meanwhile, in the digital world, children are left dangerously under protected, exposed to addictive platforms designed to capture attention and fuel social comparison. 

The foundational harms he talks about are spot-on. Kids spend far less time with friends in person, weakening their social skills and support networks. This leads to social-deprivation and maladaptation that manifest themselves in a myriad of problematic ways. Being surrounded by device disrupt healthy sleep, fueling irritability, poor learning, and mental health problems. The harms of constant sleep deprivation is very well-documented. There is an expectation to be always on so as to not miss out on what's happen in social media. These unending flurry of notifications and the need to be multitasking mode at all times, erode the ability to focus and think deeply, leading to attention fragmentation. Then there is the additive quality of  apps and games are engineered to be compulsive, keeping kids hooked and distracted. The kids simply cannot catch a break given the forces working against them. 

All his ideas for how to help the situation are logical and grounded in commonsense. What is unclear is who has the incentive to make those changes happen for the kids.