** The Coddling of the Online Mind **
I spent 10 years working at Facebook, of which I spent 5 years in trust and safety (the part of the company responsible for harms happening on the platform), and 1 year directly responsible for youth issues on Instagram. Since Facebook was my first private sector job, I tried to keep a tab on the negative effects (and have the bookshelf to prove it) of social media. Most of the narratives, either complaining about how evil big tech is, or rallying people to the call of neo-ludditism, fell flat to somebody whose world has been unlocked by the possibilities of the internet. “Anxious Generation” is the first book I’ve found that takes a balanced approach to dissecting the mountains of correlational data, offering a convincing, if narrow, causal diagnosis:
The ways kids currently spend time on smartphones are causally harmful to their mental health.
Importantly, Haidt addresses the nuances in the data head-on:
- Negative effects hit girls harder than boys.
- Problems arise mostly with excessive use.
- Technology isn’t inherently bad.
Haidt also builds the first compelling narrative I’ve seen around these findings. According to Anxious Generation, the biggest drawback of technology use is the opportunity cost between online activity and real-life experiences. It’s not just that the internet replaces TV—it dominates waking hours, averaging 8 hours and 39 minutes per day according to Common Sense Media (2021). What’s missing online?
- Awe: Online activities fail to provide awe (e.g., moral beauty, collective effervescence, nature, music, visual design, spiritual and religious wonder, life and death, and epiphanies), a key component of mental health.
- Low-Stakes Play: Low-stakes play, an essential part of healthy development, is difficult to replicate online. This limits opportunities for kids to engage in playful exploration, further exacerbating screen time’s negative effects.
- Embodied, Synchronous Interaction: The best way to learn social interaction is through embodied, synchronous play. While some online activities (e.g., gaming) allow for synchronous interaction, they account for only a small fraction of total screen time.
Another critical finding is the unique way in which social media harms girls’ mental health. Haidt leans on gender socialization theories, explaining how the communal orientations of teenage girls make them particularly vulnerable to social comparison and anxiety. This explanation aligns with data I observed while working at Meta and represents a narrower critique than the typical “Facebook is evil” argument.
I’m a millennial who grew up with internet access primarily through laptops rather than handheld devices. I wonder if we had the right level of exposure at the right time? Unfortunately, the data for Gen Alpha and beyond is already in—and it’s troubling.
** 4th book of 2025**