Note: This is the english version of a previous post written in portuguese
There has been much discussion about Jonathan Haidt’s book “The Anxious Generation.” I have discussed the ideas the author presents here and here. I still believe the text is very important and needs to be worked on/discussed. That’s what I attempt to do in this post.
The book has been among the bestsellers in both Brazil and the United States since its release. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Those involved in the education and upbringing of children, adolescents, and young adults have noticed the impact that interactive digital technologies have provided — whether for better or worse.
I would like to, within this proposal, bring the text into focus and discuss how it is being treated in some places I’ve seen/heard/read about. It’s peculiar that at least four researchers with solid and consistent work on the digital context and adolescent behavior have suggested that the issues raised by the author in his book are mere moral panic; minimizing the impacts of social media and mental health—especially of adolescents. I find it amusing that some of these researchers seem so angry about what’s in his book that they refuse to even mention it by name, yet they refer to the book’s points constantly. Recently, they expressed their views in three different podcasts on this topic, which is quite interesting to observe. You can listen to these episodes here, here, here, and here. The researchers in question are Candice Odgers, danah boyd, Alice Marwick, and Devorah Heitner.
I have read quite a bit of work by all these authors and frequently use texts written especially by danah boyd and Alice Marwick in my classes. What they say carries significant weight and helps me understand the world and the impacts of interactive digital technologies on the lives of children and adolescents. Their comments on Haidt’s text need to be carefully considered, as there are many important criticisms to take into account.
My interpretation, however, is that despite the criticisms, what Haidt addresses in his text needs to be a topic of discussion among parents and educators.
Indeed, we need to view Jonathan Haidt’s statements in perspective and not consider everything in his book as absolute truth or even understand it only as he has stated. We shouldn’t do that with any text by any author, to be clear. However, part of the criticisms from the authors mentioned above relate to the causal relationship Haidt posits between social media use and mental health problems in adolescents. Given the relationship he proposes between social media platforms as causes of observed mental health issues in adolescents, it must be understood that, although there seems to be an evident relationship, it is not necessarily causal.
Look, we—collectively—have had more access to tools, treatments, professionals, and diagnostic apparatus for mental health in recent years. This alone could help explain the increase in diagnoses of conditions related to worsening mental health. However, we need to understand that social dynamics are complex and many things are happening simultaneously. The rise in diagnoses coincides with the widespread adoption of social media platforms, but it also coincides with a series of other global events (wars, climate change, various conflicts, social inequality, injustices of all kinds… the list goes on).
This does not mean that there is no influence.
What I want to say here is that while it is somewhat naive and presumptuous to categorically state that social media platforms or even the emergence and use of smartphones are the cause of mental health problems in adolescents, it cannot be denied that social media platforms do influence our mental health. More on this later.
The main criticisms from the cited authors regarding Jonathan Haidt’s work directly address the point that the correlation and causation relationship he establishes between social media use and declining mental health is weak and there is insufficient evidence that it is the cause of the mental health issues we have observed (this is not speculation); especially concerning adolescents. Even considering the scenario from 2019, emphasized by the author in his arguments. These criticisms are indeed very important, and we always need to be careful not to let facts A and B occurring in the same period be understood as having a causal relationship with each other.
But it is also a fact that we need to always try to understand the general context in which a particular fact fits. What Jonathan Haidt discusses is quite related to what people perceive in their daily lives. Not by coincidence, as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, his book has been widely read around the world.
When I started writing this text on July 9, the book was the second most sold on The New York Times list, having been on the list for 14 weeks. I understand that this reverberation exists because those who are echoing what the author says in the book are seeing things happening. And that’s why I think we need to discuss the book’s topic.
For those who haven’t had the opportunity to read the book or the article that helped launch the book published in The Atlantic, I recommend watching the author’s presentation of the book and his ideas at a great event by the Center for Humane Technology. You can watch this talk here:
The most eloquent argument that goes beyond the issue of causation relationships indicated by the four authors I mentioned earlier comes from people who discuss the impacts of interactive digital technologies on our lives with a techno-optimistic perspective. I understand this is the case with journalist Taylor Lorenz, who has an excellent podcast on digital culture called “Power User.” One of the referenced talks above was published on her podcast, when she interviewed danah boyd.
Taylor often criticizes Haidt’s text, classifying it as moral panic (danah boyd does the same). I especially recommend this video from Taylor Lorenz on the topic to help build an opinion about it:
Unfortunately, one thing I think is important for helping with the context here cannot be replicated. I was recently browsing Instagram when I came across a post that Taylor Lorenz commented on. Her comment was essentially a plea for us not to collectively agree with Haidt’s argument, which she classifies as moral panic.
As I said—due to the nature of the Instagram platform (which is awful)—I couldn’t locate this post again, which I remember being from a news outlet. What struck me about this example was Taylor Lorenz’s comment and the responses people made to her comment… when I stopped to read the responses, one mother’s comment stood out. It went something like, “Taylor, I know your work and would like to learn more about this because I’m noticing this at home.” Like this, many other responses mentioned that people understood the journalist’s argument but were seeing that adolescents and children in their circles were showing mental health problems or difficulties, not to mention issues related to family dynamics impacted by mobile device use.
What the mother alludes to in her response to the journalist is the decline in young people’s mental health. This is something I’m also noticing in my circles. So, this is an important thing to consider (not just from these two examples, but from the overall context we live in). There are indications that the research mentioned or discussed by Jonathan Haidt may be weak for establishing the causal relationship he proposes in the book. Regarding this, I understand it is accurate.
On the other hand, it must be recognized that we are experiencing serious issues related to social media platforms primarily. These issues are related and have a direct impact on people’s mental health.
So, what I’m saying is that it would be very naive of us not to consider the context of conflict we collectively see, for example, since 2013 in Brazil, and which also gained global proportions in 2016 with the presidential elections in the United States due to electoral periods.
We see what happened in Brazil in 2013 and 2014, which was intense political mobilization through the instrumentalization of social media platforms, and how this brought much more serious collective consequences than just arguing with relatives in WhatsApp groups. Both in the 2018 election and during the pandemic, we suffered collective consequences and developments due to the use of social media platforms, their instrumentalization and political appropriation, and the influence of these platforms on collective behavior.
Therefore, I reiterate, it would be very naive of us to recognize this in collective behavior and political organization in society and collective movements and behaviors around ideological issues in society, and to separate other possible developments, considering that social media platforms do not influence adolescents’ and children’s mental health.
I think it is an absurd naivety and wonder to recognize how the use of platforms affects our collective behavior and influences political and electoral decisions but to separate the development of children, adolescents, and young adults from this context. We are observing this in the world around us, which is why I think we need to put Jonathan Haidt’s reading into perspective, looking at it critically, but also acknowledging that social media platforms and communication tools mediated by digital technologies do indeed cause social and individual changes.
Criticisms of what Jonathan Haidt writes should not seek to completely invalidate what he is documenting. What is necessary is to focus on the unfortunate attempt to establish a causal relationship. This is the real weak point of his argument. However, I do not believe that his considerations on the decline in adolescent mental health and its potential connection to social media are disconnected from reality.
I think it’s important to consider and take into account that impacts related to the use of interactive digital technologies by adolescents certainly exist. However, I also understand that we may not yet have developed the methodological tools necessary to analyze this.
In this sense, I believe that when we have the appropriate methodological apparatus to understand this relationship (social media use/smartphones and mental health), we will see results of this impact. I think we will see this impact manifest in the future.
So, these children who are growing up today with screens in front of their faces all the time and are being educated with TikTok and similar platforms will certainly show consequences of this in their futures. We just don’t yet have the necessary methodological tools to talk about or assess this impact now.
In this sense, it’s interesting to note that it is quite peculiar to look from the perspective of those who were adolescents in the 1980s/1990s and who are now researchers in universities; who had a formation as we were exposed to, and to see arguments that smartphones or social media do not impact adolescent mental health.
We cannot simply say that. Continuing with the techno-optimistic argument that there are no impacts is reckless because we are looking at the impact these elements have on our lives as adults, and the tangible real-world experience is showing us something different.
Finally, I think this note might be useful to organize the argument as follows: we should neither ignore nor dismiss the impact of today’s children and adolescents having their phones in their hands all the time. Declaring the absence of influence from the perspective of someone who has already been formed, who was educated with books and is now an adult, and despite having great difficulty, can identify that the phone needs to be turned off, is too naive. To look at adolescents who are exposed to screens all the hours they are awake and say that this will not impact their mental health is almost a joke.