Psychic Apocalypse 2012
 

https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/interv...tun-ld.1824924



"In 2012, young people's mental health fell off a cliff"


Jonathan Haidt has written a book about Generation Z. He fears that their high internet usage will not only lead to altered brains, but will also cause entire democracies to falter.


Haidt, who turned 60 last year, is a professor at the New York University Stern School of Business and is probably one of the most productive social scientists of our time. His latest book "Bildschirm Kinder. The devastating impact of social media on the mental health of an entire generation". A warning for Generation Z and those born after 1995.


What the hell happened to Generation Z?


From the dawn of humanity until the early 2010s, children played like any other mammal. That's what turns their brains on. Suddenly, around 2012, young people's mental health fell off a cliff. Especially among girls, but also among boys.


How does this manifest itself?


Anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide - all these curves are shooting upwards. There were no signs of this in 2010. So something happened around 2012. The only plausible explanation is the widespread use of smartphones in combination with social networks among children from the early 2010s onwards. I believe this is the cause of this global mental health crisis: The complete shift from a play-based childhood, which we had for millions of years, to a phone-based childhood.


What specific changes has this change brought?


Smartphones and social networks mean that children no longer see their friends as often in real life. They don't sleep as much. They have fewer experiences with nature and sit in front of their screens all day. As a result, they miss out on the broad spectrum of experiences that are necessary for healthy development. Their brains are tuned to a life in front of a screen. This destroys them.


Wasn't Covid worse for children and teenagers?


In 2010, teens had flip phones to talk to one person and still meet up with them. In 2015, almost everyone has a smartphone and most girls are on Instagram. This is exactly when the entire social lives of teens changed. Generation Z started to socially distance themselves in the early 2010s. Then, in 2019, they distanced themselves almost completely. Covid hasn't reduced time with friends much, that was already the case before.


Why is it so difficult to do without social networks?


What is so transformative about social networks is the effect at group level. Everyone says the same thing: "I can't stop using social networks because everyone else is doing it too." It's a collective action problem. One collective solution I propose is cell phone-free schools.


Do you have any advice for someone dealing with 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds?


They get hundreds of notifications a day, many of them never have ten minutes without interruption. Ask them to turn off almost all notifications on their smartphones.


What do you suggest in terms of age limits?


First: No smartphones until the age of 14. Secondly, no social networks until the age of 16.


Are there lessons that can be learned from other communication revolutions such as the printing press, radio or television?


They all focus on the content. There is violence and sex on TV, so we should reduce the amount of violence and sex. But the content is not nearly as important as the fact that with the introduction of television, life suddenly became about sitting still and being entertained. Everything became entertainment, including our politics. The medium, not the content, is the problem: the smartphone lets children have all their experiences on a tiny screen.


What about very young children? Can they have our smartphone from time to time?


The children love it, of course, and it gives the parents peace of mind. Years ago, when our children wanted to be attached to our cell phones, my wife and I thought: maybe this is the way of the future. We had no idea what we were doing. Today, correlational studies clearly show that children who spend more time on screens perform worse at the age of one, two or three because they have no social interaction. But there are no experiments with young children, thank goodness.


Why is it so important for children to play outside and expose themselves to danger?


It's how they learn how the world works. Two elements are crucial: that there should be no adult supervision, because adults would intervene at the slightest sign of trouble or conflict, and that is not good for the child's development. And: children have to conquer things, take risks. I'm sure you can remember things you did as a child that were risky. Those are the most exciting things we've ever done. It's the actual feelings of fear and thrill that reset the fear level in your brain and tell you, "You know what? I can do this! Today, we rarely give our children the chance to experience moments like this.


Kids growing up with smartphones - will they ever be able to concentrate?


In their early teenage years, children need to develop executive function, i.e. the ability to focus on a task. It is based on neural circuits in the prefrontal cortex that develop during puberty. But 45 percent of American teenagers say they are online "almost all the time". This means that when you talk to them, they are thinking about a post they have written and looking at their cell phone within three minutes. Some young people are never fully with the person they are talking to. In my opinion, this is the biggest threat to children's health in Western countries. Covid was nothing compared to what we are doing to our children with social networks and smartphones.


Aren't social networks just the beginning?


I think AI will make the current trends much worse. Video games, for example, will be incredibly immersive. And the use of AI to find the perfect sexual partner is already underway. People are already falling in love with their AI girlfriends and boyfriends. They will eventually be much more seductive and entertaining than a real person. Many young people - especially boys - will never learn how to interact with real people.


But if we deprive our children of smartphones, they will not be prepared for the world of work.


Kids can learn these things within a couple of weeks. So if you keep your child away from all social media until they are 18 and then they get a job in a company where they have to use social media, they will learn that in a couple of weeks and they will have a fully functioning brain with good executive functions so they will be even better at the job.


Is watching videos bad?


Let's take Netflix. I ask my students, "How many of you watch Netflix?" All of them. "How many of you wish Netflix had never been invented?" No one. Sure, Netflix eats up time, but the quality is usually good, and people don't regret it. When I ask my students, "How many of you watch Tiktok?" All of them. However, almost all of them wish it had never been invented. So it's the short videos that are toxic: Tiktok, Instagram Reels, Youtube Shorts. These are the most destructive videos because the content is often bizarre and degrading. It's really disgusting stuff that kids are being immersed in. It's crazy that we let kids on social media - we don't let 12, 13, 14-year-olds into brothels or casinos.


What about video games?


There are a few small advantages to video games. Boys who play video games are slightly better at certain tasks, and the games are extremely fun. But the risks of heavy use outweigh the benefits. 5 to 10 percent of boys become addicted, and 2 to 5 percent become severely addicted. The strong stimulation of the dopamine neurons causes the brain to develop a tolerance. If these highly addicted boys are playing five hours a day, this stimulation probably changes the development of their brain during puberty. So I would say if you want to let your child play an hour or two a day on the weekend, there's no harm in that. But if your children start playing three hours a day, seven days a week during puberty, there could well be permanent changes to their brains.


Can young adults completely reverse the damage to their brains?


My hypothesis is that years of heavy use during adolescence leads to permanent changes in the brain, meaning that the person is predisposed to more negativity and anxiety. However, the brain is still plastic until the age of 25 and even beyond. My college students at NYU are 19 years old. They've grown up with social media. Many have anxiety issues. Most have attention issues. But they can learn techniques to become less distracted and regain control of their attention.

Could the algorithms of social networks be changed so that people become calmer and happier instead of more anxious and depressed?


That is impossible. Because the problem is not primarily the content, but the medium. As long as children spend many hours a day on their cell phones, they won't do anything meaningful; they won't talk to friends or go for a walk in nature. Offering them slightly better content might make them a little less anxious, but there is no way to make them healthy and strong.


What does it lead to if we as parents and as a society don't make changes?


Take the United States: The American experiment is an experiment in self-governance. But we no longer have the virtues and skills that our Founding Fathers found necessary to maintain a democratic republic. We have blown it. We are passing this country on to a generation that we never allowed to learn the skills of self-government. Now we have a democracy that is headed for a cliff. Also, in my opinion, Generation Z is less creative because they don't have time to think. Many of them never have ten minutes to daydream without interruption. They have to consume so much content every day that they don't have time to think.


What consequences could this have?


I think the economic consequences will be serious. Boys in particular will drop out of school. Imagine a future in which young men largely withdraw from society. They prefer to play video games and have AI robot girlfriends that they date and marry. The girls still go to college and get the corporate jobs. But because they are so scared, they may be less risk-taking and entrepreneurially creative.


Do authoritarian regimes have a better handle on the problem?


This is another reason for my concern: today's digital technology makes it harder for democracies to succeed, and it makes it easier for authoritarian countries like China. My fear is that, in the long term, democracies may find it difficult to prepare for the digital age, while authoritarian countries are already benefiting from it.


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I still remember this famous book by Neill Postman from the 80s: Amusing Ourselves to Death.