What To Read In Addition To Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt has created a lot of chatter and concern among parents and policymakers. With the United States moving to ban TikTok, it honestly could not have been released at a better time.
I’ve read his excerpts and have been following his research for quite a while. However, I think there’s a lot of missing nuance. Every kid is different. And it feels like a lot of the hand wringing is just as much about the parents & adults as the children…which makes it highly likely to move from “real concern” to “moral panic”. This exact wave have happened before with other media.
- And in the 1990s, there was the push to ban the Walkman.
- In the 1980s, there was a War on Beepers (yes, like pagers).
- In the 1960s, there was a Senate investigation into the how TV was making children ill.
The leading paragraph of the New York Times’ report on TV reads..
TELEVISION has come in for its share of attention on the home front this week. First came the report to the American Academy of Pediatrics that excessive television viewing could make a child ill. Next came a Senate subcommittee warning to the TV industry concerning the “clearly excessive” fare of crime and violence during hours when children were most likely to be tuned in.
Effect of TV on Children Weighed
Now – in every instance, there was a core of a problem. But the problem was generally solved with a few small reforms and better awareness. With TV, it was Mr. Rogers who identified a few key fixes.
Hopefully, it’ll be the same this time around. Nature has a good article on focusing on known, proven causes of depression and suicide that are still being ignored even among the debate over social media.
