Nashville Parent recommends a lot of books in our magazine pages. But never has a book sat us up for us like this one. In The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Penguin Random House; 2024), author Jonathan Haidt confirms what many parents worry about: the decline in play time for kids and the replacement of it with technology has changed childhood for good — and in an unhealthy way. Your child’s development itself is at stake.
Nashville Parent Recommends “Anxious”
In recent Facebook posts, Nashville Parent asked, “Do you let your kids use Snapchat?” We also asked, “Do you allow your kids to use TikTok?” And, “Do you monitor your child’s social media?” Brave responders said, no, no and yes. They also painstakingly shared personal anecdotes and horror stories of what they learned their kids have experienced on certain platforms. These are the parents fully connected (or so they think) to their kids’ activities. For those of you whose kids lock themselves away for hours on end at home on a device, the author is talking to you.
It’s nothing new, it’s just that the problem is expanding.
Concerns about the effect of social media on kids is now widespread. But nobody knows what to do. Nobody wants to be blamed for what’s happening to kids, and the beasts known as social media just keep growing. Generationally speaking, some parents aren’t sure they agree that social media is so harmful, especially since their older parents are fretting about it. Generation X parents say Baby Boomer parents are out of touch. But Baby Boomer parents want Gen X parents to better protect the innocence of childhood.
The Anxious Generation author, Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, says parents need to pay better attention to their preteen and teen’s social lives. He says your concerns over your kids’ activities on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and the like are not unfounded. Haidt acknowledges parental hysteria in the past over the evils of rock and roll, television or video games, doesn’t compare to social media’s damaging effects on young minds.
Haidt shows that for many kids — and especially girls — social media’s comparisons, messaging and more are devastating to a kid’s self esteem and self image and it comes at a terrible time: as adolescence hits, social media causes deeper comparisons to other people’s happy, more popular lives. Ouch. Haidt’s important new bestseller bolsters the concerns many parents have about their kids’ mental health. With all that we have learned about the social media trap and all of the adverse current evidence, it may be best for parents to guide their kids toward more healthy brain endeavors. It’s a big ask.
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