[How About This Book] When a Smartphone Is Charged, a Child's Brain Is Discharged

Teenagers Are an 'Anxiety Generation'... Smartphones and SNS Negatively Affect Emotions
Children Growing Up Through Play... Shift to Smartphone-Based Childhood
Overprotective Attitudes Toward Children... Anxiety Starts from Parents

‘Wait Until 8th’ is a group of American parents who pledge not to give their children smartphones until the 8th grade (equivalent to the 2nd year of middle school in Korea).

They believe smartphones are harmful to young children. Jonathan Haidt, professor at New York University Stern School of Business and author of "The Anxious Generation," argues that even 8th grade is too early. Haidt, a world-renowned social psychologist, suggests changing the group's name to ‘Wait Until 9th,’ meaning to wait until 9th grade. Applying this to the Korean school system, he proposes giving children smartphones only after they enter high school. Furthermore, he insists that even after giving smartphones, restrictions should be placed to prevent the use of social networking services (SNS) for about two more years.

In "The Anxious Generation," Haidt demonstrates how smartphones and SNS emotionally harm teenagers and suggests what efforts governments, schools, parents, and big tech companies should make together to foster proper emotional development in youth.

Haidt refers to the so-called Generation Z, born after 1996, as the Anxious Generation. The root cause of their anxiety is smartphones. Smartphones isolate teenagers from society, depriving them of time to learn social norms through rites of passage and reducing sleep time, which causes them to grow emotionally sensitive, anxious, and fragile. Some sociologists distinguish children born around 2010 as Generation Alpha, separate from Generation Z. However, Haidt points out that children born after 2010 are also trapped by the harms of smartphones and SNS, making the distinction meaningless.

Research shows that the age at which SNS use has the worst impact is 11 to 13 years for girls and 14 to 15 years for boys. Coincidentally, when Generation Z was exactly this age, a major innovation occurred in the smartphone industry. The year 2010 saw the introduction of front-facing cameras on smartphones. In June of that year, the first iPhone with a front camera, the iPhone 4, was released. Samsung Electronics also launched the Galaxy S with a front camera in the same month. This created an environment where smartphone users could easily take photos and videos and communicate via smartphones. Coincidentally, Instagram launched its first service in 2010. Prior to that, in 2009, Facebook introduced the ‘Like’ button, and Twitter introduced the ‘Retweet’ button. These features quantified whether a post attracted attention, in other words, the success of a post. In an environment where viral content could spread, people used extreme and increasingly severe expressions of anger and hatred to create successful posts. Facebook began using algorithm-curated news feeds, and other platforms also competed to curate content.

Haidt emphasizes that this technological shift marked the beginning of the ‘Great Rewriting of Childhood’ in 2010. Humanity evolved through interactions within small real-world communities for a long time, but Generation Z grew up in a virtual world created by smartphones, completely different from previous generations. Haidt calls this transition from a ‘play-based childhood’ to a ‘smartphone-based childhood’ the ‘Great Rewriting of Childhood.’

The cause of the Great Rewriting of Childhood is not just technological change. Haidt points out that social, economic, and technological changes from the 1980s to the 1990s led to the emergence of parents obsessed with anxiety and overprotection of their children. The spread of cable TV broadcasted anxiety-inducing news 24/7, the increase of working women led to more daycare centers and after-school programs, and parenting experts gained influence but amplified parents’ anxieties without scientific evidence. Parents, anxious in the real world, failed to recognize the harms of smartphones that kept children indoors. As a result, parents believed their children were safe thanks to smartphones. In conclusion, Haidt argues that Generation Z’s anxiety is a phenomenon caused by a combination of overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world.

Haidt presents charts proving that depression and anxiety among teenagers significantly increased between 2010 and 2015 in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. He also explains that within just five years from 2010 to 2015, teenagers’ social patterns, role models, emotions, physical activities, and even sleep patterns fundamentally changed. He describes how the daily life, consciousness, and social relationships of a 13-year-old with an iPhone in 2013 were vastly different from those of a 13-year-old with a flip phone in 2007.

Haidt insists that teenagers must be immediately isolated from smartphones and SNS to prevent further anxiety. In the last four chapters of his 12-chapter book, he advises governments, schools, companies, and families on what actions to take. He recommends enacting laws that require all SNS companies to verify users’ ages and allowing schools to require students to store their phones in lockers during school hours.

The Anxious Generation | Jonathan Haidt | Translated by Lee Choong-ho | Woongjin Knowledge House | 528 pages | 24,800 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.