In The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt marshals the evidence for returning to a play-based, rather than phone-based, childhood. Parents must band together to bring their kids back to reality and health.
During my freshman orientation in the fall of 2016, I remember reading a post from a classmate explaining why a classroom phone ban was unfeasible: “Sometimes, if I’m about to have a panic attack, I just have to look at a picture of a cat immediately.” This was met with comments expressing sympathy.
This was the early days after the Great Rewiring, a term Haidt uses for the period from 2010 to 2015, when teens’ lives moved online and their mental health plummeted. The sad irony of my classmate’s approach is that dependency on cat pictures to avoid momentary discomfort does not reduce anxiety, it exacerbates it. As Haidt wrote in The Coddling of the American Mind, young people seem to live by the phrase, “What doesn’t kill me makes me weaker.”
This is contrary to nature, where resistance strengthens bone and muscle tissue, and exposure to bacteria builds up the immune system. Challenge induces growth. What’s more, this approach is contrary to how kids were raised until very recently. Getting dirty, getting into scrapes, and taking risks all used to be ordinary and essential.
Physical free play creates a virtuous cycle. Kids test their capabilities and learn to negotiate with their peers. Counterintuitively, less supervision can lead to fewer injuries in the long run because kids feel more
