Anxious Generation -- Two years later

Tmatt offers painful observations for parents, pastors, teachers and counselors

When Rational Sheep opened for business two-plus years ago, there was a huge signpost just ahead for people interested in debates about technology, smartphones, social media and screens-culture issues in general. We were getting close to the release of Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.”

I already had an email folder loaded with Haidt essays on these issues, mostly from The Atlantic. I had already requested an interview with him for my “On Religion” column (and the Substack project I was planning) — getting in line with all the other journalists, activists and think-tank folks who were waiting for the book to land.

Haidt’s book would, obviously, be important and I assumed that it would be a mid-level bestseller. That turned out to be an understatement, to say the least. The book is still ranked 17 on the “most read” list at Amazon. It has sold an estimated 2 million copies, topping the New York Times bestseller list five times.

However, I don’t think there was anyway to know the impact that this book has had, in terms of shaping debates at the legal, political and cultural levels.

But what about discussions inside major religious denominations and institutions? That remains the Rational Sheep angle in this drama.

When I talked to Haidt, he was surprised — not in a good way — that faith-group leaders were all but silent on the mental-health and spiritual issues discussed in the book. The bottom line: For traditional religious believers, souls were clearly at stake, as well as heart and minds. That’s the truth.

There have been a few cautious responses at the institutional level, while individual religious thinkers and activists have produced waves of online materials and even some books on screens-culture issues. Rational Sheep is part of that scene, of course. And there is evidence that, when religious educators step forward on these issues, their changes have positive results in their classrooms.

In my experience, nothing happens in religious congregations without the support of the pulpit. Clergy in pulpits — in many denominations — do not speak without the clear support of their superiors.

Just the other day, in my “Basic steps: Southern Baptists ponder chatbots” post, I noted:

To Haidt’s sad amazement, the world is not full of “mainline” and even conservative religious leaders who are worried about these new realities.

When the book came out, and became an instant bestseller, and legislatures ramped up debates about social-media issues, who were the only religious leaders who responded to his attempts to talk? [Haidt told me that] Orthodox Jews would call back, since they were well aware that they were called to countercultural lives in this day and age. Yes, it helps to remember that Haidt calls himself a cultural Jew and atheist.

Haidt wanted to know how he could reach evangelicals and Christian educators, seeking ways to share what he is learning with them. It was easier to reach out to California legislators than the leaders of conservative Christian schools.

Haidt has now, via X, released a short update on life after “The Anxious Generation.” I will get to that in a moment.

But let me offer a few reactions of my own from the past two years. These are my opinions and observations, while trying to figure at what is happening at the level of pulpits and denominational bureaucracies.

* Silence remains the primary response. Rational Sheep readers have, in comments and emails, consistently told me that they believe their shepherds are simply afraid to cause conflicts in pews and in religious schools. Right now, it’s safer to be a culturally liberal Democrat who speaks out on smartphones, social media and mental health issues than to be a conservative religious leader who takes similar stands in word and deed. Why is that?

* Among some cultural conservatives, it’s common to hear comments that the technology may be risky, but that the big problem is parents who fail to control their children and their homes. Meanwhile, experts continue to show evidence that parental-control software is largely ineffective, in part because young people know the technology (#DUH) better than their parents.

* There is quite a bit of nihilism in some circles, which may provide some logic for the silence. Many people believe that they cannot fight Big Tech, so why try? Of course, it helps that almost everyone has smartphones in their purses or pockets during 99.9% of their waking hours (and near their pillow when asleep). Thus, it’s easier to say that Big Tech is all powerful than it is to look in the mirror.

* At this point, it’s clear that class-action lawsuits are going to be a big club activists will use to punish the software mavens who are making billions and billions of dollars with algorithms tuned to hook screen-users of all ages, starting at the age of 2. However, this rather libertarian response is becoming common: The lawsuits are all about money and greed (lawyers, you know), not about protecting the young. That’s the ticket.

* Apparently, screens-culture addictions are especially high (and destructive) on the cultural left and, especially, with young females in highly secular homes in which parents may also wrestle with their own mental-health issues. Meanwhile, I am reading lots of commentary by cultural conservatives — individuals — who are asking spiritual questions linked to Haidt’s work. Coming full circle: Why hasn’t this inspired more action by conservative religious groups that, in the past, have been quick to warn against dangerous moral and spiritual trends in the culture around them?

With all this in mind, let me offer a triple flashback into some relevant material from my long interview with Haidt (“Digging deeper into spiritual issues in screens culture”):

HAIDT: “What seems to have happened gradually over several decades, and then suddenly after 2012, is that young people were sort of cast out into space, disconnected, floating in cyberspace. The kids who made it through are especially those who are locked into binding communities and religious communities are the prime example.”

Researchers have found that it is “really the secular kids and the kids in progressive families, they’re the ones who got washed out to sea, where kids from religious and conservative families, they’re a little worse off. Everyone is affected, but they were not washed out to sea to the same degree.

“So, I think about the church, or any religious community -- I’ve done a lot with Jewish day schools. I think about it as a community, very focused on children, often around a school and a house of worship. Those are the two main institutions that will make up life … in a religious community. … I guess that it’s really, school, house of worship and then family life. With respect to liberal kids, all three of those are less binding. For religious conservatives, all three are much more binding and constraining.”

By all means, read all of that post. Here is another crucial byte of that material, chosen for its relevance to the work of religious groups:

HAIDT: “I have tremendous respect for religion, for religious communities. I think we need religious communities. If we don’t have religious communities, we end up making some other community quasi-religious and that often works out very badly.

“So, when I say spiritual ‘degradation,’ I am referring to a general sense that you find around the world that people can behave in a more elevated, noble, ethical way or a more degraded, carnal and selfish way. All of us can move up and down on this dimension (of life). Some people are instinctually high on this, even saints, or somehow closer to God, or somehow above us.

“At the bottom are people who spent all of their lives down in the lower levels. We see them as monsters, ultimately. But most of us are in the middle somewhere and we move up and down depending on various factors. For example, one of the simplest factors is, are we rushed? If we are under time pressure, we are not very generous, we don’t listen to people, we don’t have time for anyone else.” …

“Since young people are spending nine out of 10 hours a day on their devices -- on average, just the average -- if you take out 10 hours a day from anyone’s life, there isn’t really any time left. That’s pretty much all of it, other than the stuff that you have to be doing. So, just the subtraction of all time and attention means that we have a generation being raised that doesn’t have time for other people -- offline, at least.”

One more passage:

HAIDT: The key is when young people are using digital screens, in one way or another, the majority of the hours that they are awake.

“That 10-12 hours is using the most powerful learning technique known, which is behaviorist conditioning. Do an action, get a reward. If you do an action, you get a reward. Not every time, it’s on a variable-ratio schedule. … That’s the way you train a rat. That’s the way you train a dog.

“So, an hour a day on TikTok is likely to be more influential than an hour a day in church, because in church you’re just talking to people. … You don’t have, like, a button that allows you to give them a little reward -- a reward, a little bit of dopamine.”

With all of that in mind, here is the complete March 26 “The Anxious Generation” update on X, care of Haidt himself.

I have added some bold type to note what I think are some key ideas and comments, from a Rational Sheep point of view.

The Anxious Generation was published two years ago today, in a very different world. Back then, the most common objection I got was resignation: "The train has left the station." "You can't put toothpaste back in the tube." "It's how the kids connect today."

Today, the world looks very different. It turns out that if our kids were all on a train and we learned it was heading toward a collapsed bridge, we'd find a way to stop it and bring them safely back to the station. That’s what’s happening now.

After the historic verdicts in Los Angeles and New Mexico, today is a great day to reflect on the capacity of people in democratic societies to take action, even when opposing some of the most powerful corporations in history. We're getting access to the courts. We're getting phone-free schools. We're seeing whole neighborhoods letting kids out to play, unsupervised, which is what we older folk all remember as the best part of childhood.

So I want to recognize:

-- The mothers (and, right behind them, fathers) who rose up by the millions and powered the movement.

-- The farsighted governors and legislators in red states and blue states who have been innovating on policy solutions.

-- The leaders of a dozen of nations, who are raising the age to 16 for opening social media accounts (with a special shoutout to Australia, for going first).

-- The teachers and school administrators who had their classrooms disrupted for 15 years, and who are now eager to think through new solutions as screens have taken over and obstructed learning.

-- The grassroots organizations who have been dedicating their efforts to advocate for all of the above in their local communities.

-- The millions of members of Gen Z who have been rising up, demanding agency over how they spend their lives in the digital era, and finding better ways to connect in real life.

And one final group: the survivor parents -- the ones you saw in those pictures of people embracing on the front steps of the LA courthouse. I have met many over the years. I am in awe of their courage and tenacity, their willingness to tell their stories of loss, over and over again, to different audiences, in the hope that no other parent would have to endure what they have endured. At long last, juries and legislatures are hearing you, and are acting.

Together, we are calling the train back to the station. Together, we are rolling back the phone based childhood and reclaiming life in the real world.

Now, other than the reference to “grassroots organizations,” does anyone see a gigantic hole in this Haidt update?

I know that he has continued to try to contact and work with religious leaders and their flocks. What has happened in that world over the past two years?

Any suggestions? Please let me hear from you in the comments pages.

Please. Silence is not the solution as we head into year three.

Hearts, minds and souls are at stake.