The Anxious Generation

Haidt describes puberty as a critical period of brain rewiring, where experiences shape long-term development. The adolescent brain undergoes pruning (eliminating unused neural connections) and myelination (enhancing efficiency), reinforcing frequently used neural pathways. This makes puberty a time of heightened learning potential, but children and teens are also more vulnerable to stress and harmful influences. Adolescents need diverse real-world experiences—challenges, social interactions, and risks—to develop resilience and social competence. However, modern parenting and technology have disrupted this process.

Historically, children developed resilience through moderate stress and challenges, but since the 1990s, safetyism has deprived them of real-world experiences. Parents and schools removed opportunities for unsupervised play, minor risks, and conflict resolution, shielding children from discomfort at the cost of children’s ability to manage adversity.

In the early 2010s, a second blocker of real-world experiences—smartphones—amplified this problem. Digital devices offer infinite engagement, replacing real-world experiences with screen-based interactions that fail to develop essential social and emotional skills. Adolescents spend less time navigating face-to-face interactions, learning from nonverbal cues, or handling real-world setbacks. As a result, they enter adulthood with underdeveloped independence, risk assessment skills, and emotional regulation.

Haidt discusses how, for most of human history, societies structured adolescence with rites of passage that provided a clear transition from childhood to adulthood. These ceremonies followed a three-phase structure: separation, where adolescents left behind childhood behaviors; transition, in which they underwent challenges with adult guidance; and reincorporation, where they were welcomed as adults. Girls’ rites often revolved around fertility and social responsibilities, such as the Apache sunrise dance, while boys’ rites frequently involved physical trials, such as Indigenous vision quests.

In many religious traditions, ceremonies like Bar and Bat Mitzvahs marked the point at which children assumed adult responsibilities. Historically, these milestones provided adolescents with purpose, social status, and mentorship. However, as modern secular societies moved away from structured rites, adolescents created their own, such as fraternity hazing and gang initiations—often dangerous imitations of traditional rites, lacking adult supervision and purpose.

In addition to the loss of structured rites, the 1980s and 1990s saw a shift in parenting styles that further disrupted adolescent development. Safetyism led to the removal of independent outdoor play, unsupervised activities, and opportunities to navigate social challenges. Parents and schools increasingly intervened to prevent both physical and emotional discomfort, denying children the experiences that build self-reliance. While these overprotective measures were imposed on millennials too, the dramatic rise in mental health issues did not emerge until Gen Z reached adolescence in the early 2010s. This suggests that safetyism alone was not the cause, but when combined with a second major experience blocker—the smartphone—it created a generation that was more fragile and anxious than ever before.

Haidt contends that the smartphone revolution fundamentally changed adolescence by replacing real-world experiences with digital interactions. Online engagement offers endless stimulation, making it easy for young people to neglect in-person relationships, outdoor activities, and the challenges necessary for maturity. Unlike real-world social interactions, which involve body language, vocal tone, and immediate feedback, online communication is asynchronous and disembodied. This deprives adolescents of crucial social learning, leaving them less equipped for adult relationships. The internet also removed age-based milestones; in traditional societies, increasing freedom came with age-graded responsibilities, but online, a 12-year-old can access the same content as an adult. To make matters worse, social media platforms, video games, and online communities do not enforce meaningful age restrictions, which means children are exposed to adult topics long before they have the emotional maturity to handle them.

As digital immersion intensified, traditional markers of adolescent independence began to fade. Since the 1990s, high school seniors have been less likely to get a driver’s license, work for pay, drink alcohol, or engage in dating and sexual relationships—activities that were once seen as key steps toward adulthood. While some of these changes reflect positive societal shifts, such as reduced drunk driving, they also indicate a broader trend: young people are delaying or avoiding the real-world experiences that prepare them for independence. At the same time that adults started restricting young people’s freedoms in the physical world, they were granting them unrestricted access to the virtual world, where all barriers between childhood and adulthood disappeared.

To restore a clear path to adulthood, Haidt proposes a structured series of developmental milestones that gradually increase freedoms and responsibilities. Starting at age six, children should take on household responsibilities, followed by increased independence at eight, when they can play unsupervised with peers. By 10, they should be allowed to roam farther and take on simple responsibilities outside the home, such as running errands.

At 12, the apprenticeship phase begins, where children engage in mentorship and work opportunities outside the family. Fourteen marks the start of high school, a time when adolescents should take on greater academic and extracurricular challenges. At 16, teens should be granted internet adulthood, meaning they can legally sign up for social media accounts. (This would entail raising the current minimum age of 13, which Haidt argues is too young.) Finally, at 18, full legal adulthood should begin, followed by 21 as the final milestone when young people gain unrestricted access to alcohol, gambling, and other adult privileges.

Haidt claims that without a structured path to maturity, children do not naturally develop into fully functioning adults. The combination of safetyism and smartphones has blocked adolescents from accumulating the experiences they need to build independence, resilience, and competence. Historically, societies guided young people through rites of passage, ensuring they developed the skills necessary for adulthood. By restoring age-based milestones and granting increasing responsibilities alongside freedoms, modern societies can help adolescents make a smoother, healthier transition into adulthood.