Sociologists are warning that parents are facing heretofore unprecedented challenges. Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School, has documented the challenges in his book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing An Epidemic of Mental Illness. He warns of a mental health crisis among youth due to the effects of social media and gaming. He identifies the convergence of several technological trends: 1) the arrival of the iPhone in 2007; 2) the expansion of the internet’s capacity to transmit data; 3) the arrival of social media in 2009; 4) the arrival of smartphone cameras in 2010. With teens spending an average of almost seven hours a day on screens, with one out of four admitting that they are online almost constantly, the result is what Haidt calls “the Great Rewiring” of the adolescent brain.1
Girls are immersed in social media, boys in video games, YouTube, and pornography. The Gen-Z cohort is, he writes, “the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and … unsuitable for children and adolescents.”2 They “spent far less time playing with, talking to, touching or even making eye contact with their friends and families.”3 Between 2010 and 2024 rates of depression and anxiety skyrocketed among teens. “The rate of self-harm for… young adolescent girls nearly tripled from 2010 to 2020.”4
These technological changes have been accompanied by two social changes as well, changes in ways of parenting. First, “We decided the real world was so full of dangers that children should not be allowed to explore it without adult supervision, even though the risks to children from crime, violence, drunk drivers, and most other sources have dropped steeply since the 1990s.”5 Second, parents left access to the internet unsupervised. “It seemed like too much of a bother to design and require age-appropriate guardrails for kids online, so we left children free to wander through the Wild West of the virtual world, where threats to children abounded.”6 Peggy Noonan, in her review of Haidt’s work, refers to the “dark irony” of his findings: “Parents are often physically overprotective of their children out of fear of sexual predators. But those predators have moved online, where it’s easy to find and contact children.”7
Haidt cites an article written by a 14-year-old girl for Free Press: “I was ten years old when I watched porn for the first time. I found myself on Pornhub, which I stumbled across by accident and returned to out of curiosity. The website has no age verification, no ID requirement, not even a prompt asking me if I was over 18. The site is easy to find, impossible to avoid, and has become a frequent rite of passage for kids my age. Where was my mother? In the next room, making sure I was eating nine differently colored fruits and vegetables on the daily.”8
What is a parent to do? Noonan summarizes his four recommendations:
On the one hand, these are uniquely challenging times for the parents seeking faithfully to rear their children. On the other hand, nothing has changed. It is as always the responsibility of the adults in the home to ensure that their children are protected from corrupt and corrupting influences; ensure that their children are reared in “the nurture and admonition of Jesus Christ.”
1 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 7.
2 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 6.
3 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 6.
4 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 31.
5 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 67.
6 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 67.
7 Peggy Noonan, “Can We Save our Children From Smartphones?”, Wall Street Journal, April 4, 224.
8 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 67.
9 Noonan, “Smartphones,” WSJ.
Girls are immersed in social media, boys in video games, YouTube, and pornography. The Gen-Z cohort is, he writes, “the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and … unsuitable for children and adolescents.”2 They “spent far less time playing with, talking to, touching or even making eye contact with their friends and families.”3 Between 2010 and 2024 rates of depression and anxiety skyrocketed among teens. “The rate of self-harm for… young adolescent girls nearly tripled from 2010 to 2020.”4
These technological changes have been accompanied by two social changes as well, changes in ways of parenting. First, “We decided the real world was so full of dangers that children should not be allowed to explore it without adult supervision, even though the risks to children from crime, violence, drunk drivers, and most other sources have dropped steeply since the 1990s.”5 Second, parents left access to the internet unsupervised. “It seemed like too much of a bother to design and require age-appropriate guardrails for kids online, so we left children free to wander through the Wild West of the virtual world, where threats to children abounded.”6 Peggy Noonan, in her review of Haidt’s work, refers to the “dark irony” of his findings: “Parents are often physically overprotective of their children out of fear of sexual predators. But those predators have moved online, where it’s easy to find and contact children.”7
Haidt cites an article written by a 14-year-old girl for Free Press: “I was ten years old when I watched porn for the first time. I found myself on Pornhub, which I stumbled across by accident and returned to out of curiosity. The website has no age verification, no ID requirement, not even a prompt asking me if I was over 18. The site is easy to find, impossible to avoid, and has become a frequent rite of passage for kids my age. Where was my mother? In the next room, making sure I was eating nine differently colored fruits and vegetables on the daily.”8
What is a parent to do? Noonan summarizes his four recommendations:
- No smartphones before high school, only basic phones with no internet.
- No social media before 16. Let their brains develop first.
- All schools from elementary through high school should be phone-free zones– students can store their devices in their lockers.
- • Bring back unsupervised play. Only in that way will kids naturally develop social skills and become self-governing.9
On the one hand, these are uniquely challenging times for the parents seeking faithfully to rear their children. On the other hand, nothing has changed. It is as always the responsibility of the adults in the home to ensure that their children are protected from corrupt and corrupting influences; ensure that their children are reared in “the nurture and admonition of Jesus Christ.”
1 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 7.
2 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 6.
3 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 6.
4 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 31.
5 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 67.
6 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 67.
7 Peggy Noonan, “Can We Save our Children From Smartphones?”, Wall Street Journal, April 4, 224.
8 Haidt, The Anxious Generation, 67.
9 Noonan, “Smartphones,” WSJ.