With every gain comes loss. Smartphones give us incredible power, but power requires sacrifice. It is prudent to ask, what are we sacrificing to the altar of efficiency?
The following notes are taken from Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation.
Techno-Optimism and Mental Health
“At the turn of the millennium, technology companies based on the West Coast of the United States created a set of world-changing products that took advantage of the rapidly growing internet. There was a widely shared sense of techno-optimism; these products made life easier, more fun, and more productive . . . Yet the companies had done little or no research on the mental health effects of their products on children and adolescents . . . They hooked children during vulnerable developmental stages . . . This included social media companies, which inflicted their greatest damage on girls, and video game companies and pornography sites, which sank their hooks deepest into boys . . . By creating a fire hose of addictive content that entered through kids’ eyes and ears, and by displacing physical play and in-person socializing, these companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale” (1-4).
Gen Z and The Great Re-Wiring of Childhood
“Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and — as I will show — unsuitable for children and adolescents . . . The members of Gen Z are, therefore, the test subjects for a radical new way of growing up, far from the real-world interactions of small communities . . . Call it the Great Rewiring of Childhood” (6).
Smartphones and the Creation of Gen Z
“The arrival of the smartphone changed life for everyone after its introduction in 2007 . . . A 2015 Common Sense report found that teens with a social media account reported spending about two hours a day on social media, and teens overall reported spending an average of nearly seven hours a day of leisure time . . . on screen media, which includes playing video games and watching videos on Netflix, YouTube, or pornography sites. A 2015 report by Pew Research confirms these hugh numbers: One out of every four teens said that they were online ‘almost constantly.’ By 2022, that number had near doubled” (34).
Statistics
The Surge of Depression since 2004
- Girls: 145% increase / Boys: 161%
Surge of Mental Illness among College Students since 2010
- Anxiety: 134% increase
- Depression: 106% increase
- ADHD: 72% increase
- Bipolar: 57% increase
- Anorexia: 100% increase
Suicide Rates for Younger Adolescents since 2010
- Boys: 91% increase / Girls: 167% increase
“No other theory has been able to explain why rates of anxiety and depression surged among adolescents in so many countries at the same time and in the same way” (45).
The Four Foundational Harms
Social deprivation (2) sleep deprivation (3) attention fragmentation (4) addiction
The Spiritual Side of Smart-Phone Damage
Shared Sacredness:
“Groups of individuals become a cohesive community when they engage in rituals that move them in and out of the realm of the sacred together . . .virtual communities are not usually as satisfying or meaning-giving as real-world communities.”
Embodiment:
“Religious rituals always involve bodily movement with symbolic significance . . . The virtual world is, by definition, disembodies, and most of its activities are conducted asynchronously.”
Stillness, Silence, and Focus “Meditation has been shown to promote well-being . . . The phone-based life, in contrast, is a never-ending series of notifications, alerts, and distractions, fragmenting consciousness and training us to fill every moment of consciousness with something from our phones.”
Transcending the Self “A defining feature of spirituality is self-transcendence . . . Social media keeps the focus on the self, self-presentation, branding, and social standing . . . designed to prevent self-transcendence.”
Be Slow to Anger, Quick to Forgive “Most religions urge us to be less judgmental, but social media encourages us to offer evaluations of others at a rate never before possible in human history.”
Find Awe in Nature “The grandeur of nature is among the most universal and easily accessible routes to experiencing awe, an emotion that is closely linked to spiritual practices and progress.”
God or the Smart-Phone?
“There is a ‘God-shaped hole’ in every human heart. Or, at least, many people feel a yearning for meaning, connection, and spiritual elevation. A phone-based life often fills that hole with trivial and degrading content. The ancients advised us to be more deliberate in choosing what we expose ourselves to” (218).