Kerby Anderson

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and author of books like The Coddling of the American Mind. I have interviewed him on that book and hope to interview him on his forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation. You can get a preview of his research in the attached article, “I’m Worried About the Boys, Too.”

The research on the problems girls face is well-known. He explains, “Since 2015, I have been trying to solve a mystery: all of a sudden, around 2013, rates of depression, anxiety, and self-harm began rising rapidly for American adolescents.” Let me put that in perspective. Generation Z (those born after 1996) have the worst mental health of any generation, and that data goes all the way back to those born from 1900 to 1925.

The problems increase rapidly on any graph. It looks like a hockey stick with the bend beginning in 2013. He explains what happened in that year. That was the year Facebook bought Instagram. Girls of all ages flocked to the platform.

In previous commentaries, I have mentioned Professor Jean Twenge who noted the same sharp increase. She referred to this youngest generation as the “iGen Generation” because they are digital natives who never knew a time when we didn’t have an iPhone and an iPad or other digital devices.

The conclusion of these various researchers was simple. Social media harms girls through multiple well-known mechanisms. This includes social comparison, early sexualization, perfectionism, cyberbullying and relational aggression, and emotional contagion.

Dr. Haidt ends his article by acknowledging that understanding the impact of social media solved the mystery with girls but doesn’t solve the problem with boys. I will talk about that tomorrow.