“We are overprotecting our children in the real world while underprotecting them online. If we really want to keep our children safe, we should delay their entry into the virtual world and send them out to play in the real world instead.” – The Anxious Generation
In February 2024, an Intelligent.com survey revealed that nine in ten Gen-Zers were already reporting challenges in the workplace, despite their recent entrance into the labor market. From troubles with deadlines to receiving performance feedback from bosses, Gen-Zers seemed unequipped to handle the new pressures of life outside their college bubbles. By August 2024, the same source surveyed 1000 business leaders and found that 6 in 10 employers were already firing their Gen-Z hires. Deeming them unprepared, unmotivated, and unable to adapt to a structured environment, 75 percent of employers found some or all of their recent hires unsuitable for work.
While the iGeneration (Gen Z) is more educated than their generational peers, they suffer from significantly higher rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide, with more than two in five suffering from a mental illness. Demographically, Gen Z, those born between the mid-1990s and 2012, represent a quarter of the US population, with 20 percent identifying as LGBTQ+.
In Jonathan Haidt’s 2024 book, “The Anxious Generation”, Haidt details the great rewiring that is causing mental anguish to teens and young adults who came of age following the introduction of the smartphone in 2007, particularly for girls. Chronicling the changes in technology from the introduction of the Internet to the mobility of the smartphone, Haidt shows how the Gen Z generation has been particularly affected by this new mode of communication and how its worst effects are contributing to poor mental health, not only in the United States but around the world.
Yet, the problems affecting Gen Z began long before they were born. Beginning in the early 1980s, typical play-based childhoods began to be replaced with fear-based parenting. While earlier generations were raised in a discover mode that allowed them to explore their world independently, the defense mode that followed sought to shield them from every threat, real or imagined. Where unsupervised risky play produced minor bruises, playground conflicts, and typical teasing, the ensuing absence found children retreating to the safety of their bedrooms. By denying children these much-needed rites of passage, we began to see a weakening of the critical relationships, social bonds, and community, that are so important for proper growth into adulthood.
Modern technology trends started with the computer, the Internet, the basic cell phone, and then finally the smartphone in 2007. Front-facing cameras and social media followed in 2010, dealing the worst blow to childhood and developmental progress. The selfie culture that began innocently enough in 2002 with digital cameras, became a real problem when front-facing camera uploads to social media sites began eliciting unflattering comparisons and unfavorable feedback. Add to that, the interactive hooks and algorithms, ensured an endless supply of content to keep them perpetually online. By 2013, while most children had a smartphone, another 40 percent of those under 13 would already have an Instagram account, as well.
By the early 2010s, phone-based childhoods were in full swing. Already at a vulnerable age, the smartphone hastened a further separation from peers and more alone time, from the real world to a virtual reality that wasn’t always reality at all. And it was here, that budding in-person relationships were replaced with shallow connections primarily with strangers.
Parents may have thought their children were safe in their rooms from the danger lurking in the streets but now a new threat began invading their eyes and ears: unprotected access to social media. While a basic phone could take pictures and allow texting, smartphones included the Internet, applications, and social media that went with them wherever they went, all day. This produced even further isolation for hyperconnected girls and boys occupied with video games and porn.
The disruptive effects of smartphones were confirmed in a 2023 report from Common Sense Media. After following 203 teens (aged 11-17) for one week, disturbing data of disruptions and obsession abound. On average, children were ogling their phones for 4-5 hours per day, with pick-ups totaling 51 times per day. At school, 97 percent of participants were on their phones for 43 minutes, handling their phones a dozen times a day, with TikTok their top-used app. Even overnight, 59 percent of users viewed their phones for an average of 20 minutes between the hours of midnight and 5 am.
To remedy the immediate problems, Haidt offers several suggestions. No smartphones before high school, no social media until the age of 16, phone-free schools, and parental controls on all devices. To get complete buy-in for these new suggestions, Haidt suggests collective action between parents, schools, and state and federal legislators. To eliminate the problem for future generations, Haidt calls for a return to free unsupervised play for children in childhood and throughout elementary school.
Emerging from their cloistered college lives, Gen-Zers, accustomed to pronouns and personal expressions of identity, are seemingly unprepared for the real world. As the world’s first digital natives, we shouldn’t be surprised by their demise.
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