Smartphones and social media have taken a toll on young people’s development. But one man has an idea about how to fix Gen Z. In his new book, “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (JH) investigates the sudden collapse of mental health among adolescents. The author joins Hari Sreenivasan (HS) to discuss ways for parents to head off the damage.  Below is a transcript from the closed captions in italics with my bolds and added images.

HS: Jonathan thanks so much for joining us. Your latest book is called the anxious generation, How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. You and I have talked before and you have been very careful about not seeming alarmist. This book is fascinating to me in that you supplement so much of your ideas with empirical data and research that is proving this point. What is the epidemic of mental illness and where do we find the data for that?

JH: When you and I first spoke about this it might have been back in 2019 I was not as alarmist because we weren’t sure it was clear that something was going wrong with Teen Mental Health. We had graphs showing that around 2013 rates of anxiety depression and self harm began rising rapidly. But there was an academic debate and there still is academic debate about whether it’s caused by social media. It’s correlated with girls who use it heavily, who are three times as likely to be depressed. But you know scientists are going to debate is it causal or is it just a correlation.

Since then I have learned a lot; I’ve gathered all the studies I can find including experiments. There are now a lot of experiments showing that when you randomly assign people to different conditions, it causes them to get more depressed or less depressed. So we have experimental research. But the really shocking thing that made me an alarm ringer, not an alarmist, is the discovery that the exact same thing that what happened to us in America also happened in Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Scandinavia.

At the same time, in the the same way, it was
hitting girls hardest and young girls even harder.

So it became clear this is an international epidemic of Teen Mental Illness and it began in the early 2010s. It’s hitting girls hardest, although the boys’ story is really interesting and different but is also very bad. That’s why as you say I’m leaving my old self behind and saying we need to act now, not waiting for 2025. We need to really make changes this year because otherwise another year of kids is going to be consigned to this phone-based childhood which interferes with development.

HS: So your argument is that it’s not the technology that’s bad or the internet that’s bad. You actually try to draw kind of a timeline from getting one of these supercomputers in your pocket to the front-facing selfie camera to broadband and then social media. What have each of these kind of technological evolutions done to how our brains evolve?

JH: So the technology is great, the internet is great, but things really change in the early 2010s. I really go into this in detail in the book, but let me briefly walk you through it. In 2010 only about 20% of American teens had a smartphone, kids were still using flip phones. They did not have high-speed internet. Most of did not have unlimited data plans. You used your flip phone to text or call your friends to get together and that was it. Kids were still seeing other kids in 2010.

The beginning of what I call the great rewiring happened over the next few years. The smartphone gets a front-facing camera in 2010, Instagram comes out in 2010 but becomes super popular in 2012 when Facebook buys it. So that’s when the girls really rush on, they move their social lives on to Instagram in particular also Tumbler and a few others. So you get these super viral social media platforms, it wasn’t like that in 2005. So with front facing camera and high-speed data, you get notifications. The original iPhone didn’t interrupt you; you pulled it out when you wanted it.

So in 2010 there is no sign of a mental health crisis everything’s fine so we were all super optimistic in 2011 even up to 2012. But that’s when the mental illness crisis begins and all the numbers go way up for girls and also up substantially for boys. By 2015 we have the Millennials who just barely made it through puberty before they got this. So the Millennials were in college or late high school when they adopted this phone based life. Because we’re all doing it, we’re all dominated by our our technology.

HS: Walk us through the actual harms that’s now scientifically connected to kids use and increased use of screens and social media specifically on smartphones.

JH: First we have to establish the numbers here which are stunning. The latest data from Gallup is around 9 hours a day that they spend on their phones and screens. Of that, five hours a day is social media, another 3 to five is all the other stuff that they do. So imagine if you take nine or 10 hours out of your child’s day every single day, where’s it going to come from? They spend less time sleeping, less time with other kids, less time outside, less time exercising, a lot more time just being sedentary and solitary.

For all those reasons, and oh, very little reading of books, no Hobbies, there’s no time for anything. So that’s the first thing: it pushes out all the good things of childhood that we want our kids to have. When you give a kid a smartphone it’s likely to move to the center of her life, and that’s what she’s going to do for the rest of her life. That’s one of the main ways of harm it just deprives you of everything else.

Another thing it does is to fragment your attention. Probably you and I know we can pay attention to things, we can do our work, but it’s harder now than it was 10 years ago. There’s constant interruptions, we’re still able to do it, but it’s a struggle. A teenager just starting puberty age 10, 11, 12, the prefrontal cortex is has not yet rewired for the adult configuration. They’re not very good at paying attention and early puberty is when that skill really develops. Imagine having them trying to develop that skill while being interrupted every few minutes. One study found the average teen now gets 257 notifications a day, 257 interruptions every day. It’s very hard to focus on anything, so you get fragmented attention, and we don’t know how permanent this is.

Another harm is addiction. The brain adapts to that constant level of stimulations so that when you’re not getting it, you’re in a deficit mode: you’re irritable, you’re unhappy and feel terrible. So these devices are designed to grab hold of our kids attention and never let go, and they’re very effective at that. I could go on there are so many other avenues of harm, but those are some of the big ones that I cover in the book.

HS: Can we talk a little bit about also the data and how it forks on the impacts to girls versus boys?

JH: When I started writing the book I thought it was going to be a story primarily about what social media is doing to girls, because I’ve got a lot of data on that, and because the graphs as you said are like hockey sticks. It’s like they’re going along, nothing is happening and then all of a sudden one day in 2013 they all start shooting upwards.

The hospitalizations for self harm are the most stunning,
and they’re the same in Britain, Canada, Australia.
It’s absolutely stunning what’s happened to girls since 2013.

For boys I couldn’t find a Smoking Gun. I couldn’t say oh well it’s video games or it’s social media for boys. The rise in mental illness is slower, and the key thing about boys: It’s not so much that this Modern Age is giving them diagnosable mental illness. Working with my research partner Zach Rausch we finally figured out that for boys the issue is they’ve been withdrawing from the Real World really since the 80s and 90s. They’ve been spending much more time online, they don’t go outside, they don’t wrestle. So boys are basically blocked in their development; they’re not turning into men, they’re dropping out of school, dropping out of the workforce. We’re losing a generation of boys.

It’s not as clear when you look at wealthy educated groups, there the gender gap is not so big. Once you get to middle class and below, the girls are doing okay in terms of school and work and the boys are just not. So the problems are more diffuse but they’re extremely serious for boys now.

HS: So many parents that will tell you that if you take a smartphone away from a child that it’s almost like that you’ve broken this tractor beam that they’ve had this lock on. And they’re generally speaking really aggressive. It’s a very strange equation. If it was any other kind of an addictive substance or drug, a parent would probably say: Well, let’s get that out of the house and not use it.

JH The most powerful argument a kid can make: “Mom, I have to have a smartphone because everyone else has one, and I’ll be left out. I have to have Instagram because everyone else has it and I’ll be left out.” That’s what’s called a collective action problem; it’s hard for us as parents because everyone else is doing this. So I’m proposing that we coordinate to set some Norms. Norms that would be hard to do on our own but much easier to do if we do them together.

Go back to the the parent struggling to put limits on use or to maybe give a warning. You were describing actually quintessential withdrawal symptoms from any drug. When brain circuits are used to getting this stimulation, whether from cocaine, heroin, slot machines or or social media. If that happens every day, when you take the kid off they feel horrible for a couple of weeks. It takes three or four weeks actually to detox for the brain to reset. So it’s vital that we delay the entry into this craziness and that we give our kids time away.

HS: Let’s deal with some of the reservations that I’m sure you’ve heard. Besides my kid is going to miss out, parents are concerned about giving their kids devices to be able to get in touch with them in an emergency. What are ways to do that without necessarily giving them a full smartphone loaded with social media?

JH: As a parent of two high school kids I totally understand the desire to be able to reach your children and the desire for them to reach you if something goes wrong. So first thing, we’re not saying cut them off and don’t communicate. We’re saying don’t give them the most powerful distraction device ever invented to have in their pocket all the time, including when they’re going to sleep, when they’re in class etc. So give them a flip phone; the Millennials had flip phones and they turned out fine.

My second point though is school security experts say there are procedures in place to deal with a school shooting, and and they involve listening and cooperating and working together with the teacher and the administration. So I would ask any parents who have this concern, and we all have the concern, would you rather send your kid to a school in which when there’s when there’s a potential problem everyone stays silent, they follow directions, they do what they’re supposed to do and follow the procedure. Or would you rather have one where at the first sign of a serious problem everyone pulls out their phone. They’re crying to their parents, they’re making a lot of noise, they’re not listening.  I understand the human urge to talk to your kid if there’s a crisis. But the teacher has a phone as do all the administrators. We have to let th professionals do their job and not interfere as parents.

HS: What about the idea that there are so many different types of communities who have found each other over social media? In a section of your book you talk about how ironically some of these communities that might find the most benefit are also the ones susceptible to the largest negative effects by being on social media. Please explain that.

JH: Yes. You know we often confuse the internet and social media. You’ve described a problem that the internet largely solved. Kids who were isolated in the 90s they could find you know if you’re gay if you’re bi if you’re trans, they could find other kids beginning in the 90s the internet is amazing for that. Once you start getting communities on social media, what often happens is a move to the extreme. Look at mental health Tumblr or mental health Instagram or mental health Tik Tok. You might think if a person has a particular disorder it’s great that they can interact with other people to share their disorder. I don’t think that’s true.

There’s increasing amounts of research that social media is spreading mental illness. It’s just not a good idea to have teenagers hanging out with influencers who are motivated to be more extreme to get followers. So I don’t buy the argument that this is somehow good for members of historically marginalized communities. As I report in the book, studies show that while most kids recognize that these platforms are bad for them, LGTBQ kids are even more vociferous in saying these platforms are bad for us. These platforms lead to bullying and harassment. So the internet is amazing but social media does far more harm to kids than whatever shreds of benefit you can find from it.

HS: You have taken this message to social media companies directly. Are they getting it?

JH: Well there’s been no response certainly. I think they’re kind of hemmed in. Meta did try a small thing, they tried hiding the like counter. That didn’t work to have an effect. I’ve spoken with their research staff and with leadership there. I do believe that if they could make it healthier and not lose any users they would do it. But Meta in particular has shown it’s always prioritized growth over everything else.

Many internal whistleblowers have pointed out problems, and they generally don’t respond. They don’t do the things that would be effective. For example kicking off underage users is possible, they know how old everybody is. But you when most 11 and 12 year olds have an Instagram account they should be kicked off but meta won’t do that. Snapchat won’t do that because they’d lose most of their users. So they know what are the problems. There have been many internal reports and they don’t act. And they don’t have to because Congress gave them immunity from lawsuits. This is one of the most insane things about our country. We have this environment that is incredibly toxic for our kids development, and we can’t sue them.

HS: At a senate hearing CEO of meta Mark Zuckerberg said: “the existing body of scientific work has not shown a causal link between using social media and young people having worse mental health.” Is he misinformed by his lawyers?

JH: No he’s properly informed by his lawyers. He can point to studies that support that conclusion, such a few Meta analyses and a study by the National Academy of Science that came to that conclusion. But there is so much evidence on the other side, so they’re cherry-picking. Even that National Academy’s report that claimed that there’s not enough evidence to prove causation, in that very report people should read chapter 4. It’s an amazing catalog of of the research that shows causality. So it’s a bizarre report which itself documents dozens and dozens of avenues of harm and dozens and dozens of experiments, but yet for some reason they said well we can’t prove that it’s causal.

If you go to my substack after babel.com I’ve gone through all of the studies, we itemize them, we show how the correlational studies come out, how the longitudinal studies come out, how the experimental studies come out.

There is a ton of evidence and the preponderance of the evidence
shows it’s not just a Correlation, it’s a Cause.

Zuckerberg was pointing to the few studies he could, but in the long run I believe they’re going to lose that case because the evidence keeps mounting and by now everybody sees it, including the teachers and the parents. We saw all those parents at that Senate hearing testifying that their that their kid is dead because of something that happened on social media. Were they all wrong about that? At this point in time it just defies belief that social media isn’t contributing to this Mental Health crisis.

HS: Do you think that legislation like what Ron DeSantis is proposing in Florida or other states are thinking about doing to try to delay or ban the use of social media by a certain age will work?

JH: I think the DeSantis bill, the Florida bill is great. We have to delay the age at which they get into social media. I think 16 is the right age; I mean for health reasons it should be 18, but realistically we’re not going to get 18. I think 16 is a reasonable compromise at which we can begin treating kids like adults on the internet. Right now current law says 13. At 13 companies can do whatever the hell they want to your kids. They can take their data, they can do anything, they don’t need your permission, they can treat them like adults. That’s current law and there’s zero enforcement as long as they don’t know your kid is 10. they can do whatever they want to your kid.

So the current law is horrible: it’s not enforced, the age of 13 is too low. We need to raise that to 16 and enforce it, and that’s what the Florida bill is going to do. They have a little carve out so that if parents really want their kid to be on at 14 and 15 they can specifically sign a permission. That’ll be interesting to see how the tech companies Implement that but I’m a big fan of the Florida bill. I hope all 50 states do it because there is no way to make social media safe for middle school children.

Author and Professor Jonathan Haidt, thanks so much for joining us.