Social Media: Shaping or Shattering Modern Society?

WASHINGTON — Many studies have been done on the detrimental effects of technology on American life, with social media in particular being named a major cause of psychological distress. One social researcher says there’s a reason the youngest generation is getting hit harder by the ills of technology than those that came before, but he’s not sure that it could have been prevented. 

New York University Professor Jonathan Haidt, author of “The Coddling of the American Mind” and “The Anxious Generation,” has been at the forefront of studying social media’s impact since 2018. He believes that in Meta Founder Mark Zuckerberg’s quest to “rewire the way people spread and consume information,” he unleashed a force that reshaped American society, and made us anti-social, disconnected from families and communities and exacerbated generational problems. 

“It’s not like the world is so terrible everyone is getting anxious, it’s really just Gen Z and some late Millennials that are being hit by this,” Haidt suggested as he spoke during an event at the D.C.-based think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, Monday night. 

Haidt’s research sheds light on how the decline of play-based childhood, coupled with the rise of smartphone-centric upbringing, has precipitated a crisis in mental health. 

“The basic argument is that the play-based childhood … faded out gradually between 1980 and 2010 and then, all of a sudden, in the blink of an eye, the phone-based childhood set in,” he said. “I think that is what pushed Gen Z over the edge.”

Haidt argues that the transition from a playground democracy, where children learn crucial social skills, to a digital age has “overprotected children in the real world and under-protected them online where there are no protections of any kind.”

“Kids learn to be self-governing on the playground … by having teams and games and conflicts and adjudication of those conflicts,” he said. “And we decided in the ‘90s we are not going to let young children learn the skills of democracy, we’re just going to protect them all the time.”

This, paired with the weakening of communities and institutions has caused “much higher rates of anxiety, depression and several other related disorders” for Gen Z, according to Haidt.

His observations are bolstered by statistical trends, particularly as young people transition into college. Rates of anxiety and depression for older people aren’t changing much, he contends, and COVID actually didn’t change mental health rates much either, according to new 2022 data just released.

“It was all baked in by 2019,” Haidt said. “And [we see] exactly the same pattern all over the Anglosphere.” 

Haidt said the data show that this social malaise is not hitting liberals and conservatives in the same way. A self-professed liberal, he contends that social conservatives actually benefit from stronger moral communities and a greater sense of duty, buffering them against the worst effects of digital isolation. Meanwhile, liberal ideologies, often characterized by individualism, struggle to provide the same level of support and cohesion.

“When we break it up by countries that are high individualism and low religiosity … we see that by far the biggest rise [in psychological conditions] is in girls in individualistic countries,” he explained. “They are the ones that got washed away.”

The responsibility for addressing this crisis falls on multiple fronts, according to Haidt, who advocates for legislative intervention, raising the minimum age for social media usage to 16 and mandating enforcement. Additionally, he proposes a return to analog childhoods, with limited access to smartphones and social media later in adolescence.

“Just give them a flip phone … that’s what the Millennials had and they were fine,” he said. 

He also says schools could play a pivotal role by implementing phone-free policies, fostering more free play, independence and real-world responsibility.

“In theory, all of the technology was going to help. In reality, it’s hurting,” Haidt said. “Gen Z … are less able than any generation in history to put down roots in real-world communities populated by known individuals who will still be there a year later.”

“To some degree this was inevitable,” Haidt admits. “Our species is like Icarus … we’re going to fly too close to the sun. If they had not created Facebook, things would not be quite as bad, but this is the inevitable fruit of modernity: Technology, connecting us to the world, which means we don’t care very much who is around us.”

“To some extent the decline of community was baked in as soon as we started the industrial revolution,” he said. “Big picture, this had to happen although I don’t think this had to happen this bad.”

Kate can be reached at [email protected].