Hey everybody. Hey there. A warm welcome to you. Thanks for joining me here on the Oprah podcast. I am actually really excited to talk to Jonathan Haidt about his book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness.
This book is doing something that you actually don't see often these days. It's causing a real shift in public opinion and even policies in a big way for anyone under the age of 25 and certainly for other age groups. Much of life is lived through smartphones, tablets, and on social media. On this episode, we are asking the question, at what cost? It takes away from so many things in my life. We are only just beginning to understand the impact social media and smart devices have on the mental and emotional health of young people whose brains are still developing. I know this is an issue that is top of mind for many of you parents.
When he does not have access to social media or his phone, he gets very agitated. He gets very angry. He has what I would call a teenage temper tantrum.
Social psychologist, NYU professor, and best-selling author Jonathan Haidt is on a mission to reach parents not only about his belief of the harmful effects of smartphones and social media, but also to help them take action now to prevent potential long-term damage in their children.
It is urgent that you restore your brain. You're still young, but if you do this until you're 25, then the damage might be permanent.
Jonathan's New York Times bestseller, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness, digs into the skyrocketing mental health crisis in young people.
We have to change the way we're raising kids. We have to give them back an exciting, fun childhood in the real world, not on a screen.
Jonathan Haidt joins us. Thank you for joining me from your office at NYU. Hello.
Hello, Oprah. How nice to be back talking with you.
Yeah. So, this book has been on the New York Times bestsellers list now for one year. And I would say it's because it's resonating. And anytime I run into parents who are talking about, what, I don't know, what are we going to do about all these phones, I go, "Have you read The Anxious Generation?" So many people have read it. What do you think it is that's kept it on the New York Times bestsellers list and has kept you running from one seminar to the next talking about this?
Oh, thanks, Oprah. It's very easy to answer that question. The answer is that all over the world, all over the developed world at least, family life has become a fight over screen time. It wasn't like this in 2010. I mean, we fought over television a little bit, but once our kids all got iPads, iPhones, social media apps, and that all happened around 2012, it's been a fight over screen time. We all hate it. We're all feeling trapped. We're all looking for a way out. And I think that's why the book has been a bestseller around the world.
Okay. So, what's going on with the teens who are basically addicted? Would you say that there is an addiction problem?
Absolutely. Absolutely. Let me share with you two horrific stats. And you might expect this to be the suicide stats that you and I talked about last time. You know, up 50% for adolescents since 2010, up 140% for younger teen girls. Those are horrific. But there are two other numbers I can't get out of my mind. One is 48%, which is the percentage of our adolescents in America who say that they are online almost constantly. The phone is always in their hand. They're always checking it. Even if they're talking with you, they're thinking about what's on the phone. They are checked out of life. They're never fully present. They're almost constantly involved on social media. That's one number, 48% of our teens that's happened to.
And then what I just found yesterday, which I can't believe, but here it is: 40%. That's the number of two-year-olds, two-year-olds in this country who have their own iPad, their own iPad. Which means that in the last few years, what that means is that Americans — and it's the same thing in Britain — I know Americans have basically realized, hey, if I just give the kid an iPad, I can have some peace. I can check my email. I can make dinner. And we're using it as a babysitter. So yes, you ask me, is it addiction? Yes. From the age of two all the way through the teen years, at least half our kids are hooked. I would say addicted.
Wow. And according to the CDC, 11 to 14-year-olds are spending up to 9 hours a day on their screens. And you call this the great rewiring of childhood. What impact — you just said it's addiction, but what impact is all this screen time having on young minds? I can't even — I'm blown away by that two-year-old statistic.
Yeah. Right. I think the best way to understand it is for older people, at least if you were, say, 35 years old or older, you probably grew up playing outside with friends. You had some freedom. And so I'd like everyone watching, think back about the most exciting, wonderful things that you did as a kid. What are your best memories? Okay, now let's go through it and let's see what it's like for the half of our kids who are online almost all the time. What's it like for them? So, did you ever laugh with your friends? Do you ever share a laugh with your friends? Of course. I just did a quick calculation before we talked here. Somewhere between 200,000 times and a million times is probably about the number of laughs that we shared with a friend. Imagine cutting that by 90%. Take 90% of it out of your child's life because they don't see their friends very much. And typing LOL is not the same as laughing hysterically with your friends.
Did you ever look out a car window and just daydream? Did you ever do? Of course we did. We all did that. Okay. Imagine taking out 100% of that because now as soon as the kid gets in the car, they have a device. They're on the device the whole way. That's right. Did you ever play outside? Cut 70% of that. Did you ever read a book? Cut 60% of that. Did you ever have a hobby? Cut 80% of that. So when our kids are online about 8, 10, 12 hours a day, there isn't time for anything else. It pushes everything out of childhood. And that is a sad childhood. We've got to stop this.
Yeah. I read an article recently about the college kids arriving in school now. Many of them have not actually ever completed a book, which was so startling to me. You know, you didn't have to actually read a book. You read sections of a book or portions of a book or you got this online. You know, I find that really to be incredible.
Well, that's right. And the last time you and I spoke, we focused on mental illness, anxiety, depression, and we're going to talk a lot about that today. That's really, really important. But what I've learned since you and I last spoke is that I think an even bigger harm that happened to our kids is the destruction of their ability to pay attention. Because this is — we're not just talking about 10, 20% of the kids. We're talking about most of them. I teach at New York University. Very smart kids here in the business school. A lot of them say they have a lot of trouble reading. As one of my students said, I read a sentence, I get bored, I take out TikTok. That's the way it's always been. TikTok has always been there for them and it's almost always — it's always more entertaining than whatever reading I could assign to them. So yeah, their attention is fragmented, shattered.
So you also believe — you say in The Anxious Generation, which should be in every parent's home whether your kids are two or 12 or 15 — you believe that parents are overprotecting their children in the physical world, you say, or real world, while underprotecting them online. And why should this sound an alarm for the parents who are listening to us right now?
Yeah. Because look, we all want to protect our kids. I have a daughter 15 and a son 18. We all want to protect them, but we've got to protect them from the right things. When you and I were growing up, Oprah, there was a crime wave. There was real danger. But kids still played outside. It didn't usually hit the kids that much. So kids still played outside. All kids played outside. And when we were together, we were safe. Since you and I were kids, the crime rate has plummeted. It's much safer now. There's much less drunk driving. So, and child molesters, we started locking them up. We didn't used to lock them up when you and I were kids. We thought they were just eccentrics. So, the physical world, the real world is actually safer than it was 40, 50 years ago. Crime went way down in the '90s. Where did all the child molesters go? They went on to Instagram.
Yes. Because that's where it's really, really easy to talk with children and to ask them for a photograph and maybe a photograph of them in their bikini, and before you know it you have a naked photo of them, and you can show us your stomach or show us your this or show us any body part. That's where they all are.
Exactly. So what I'm trying to say is that we've got to lighten up, loosen up, let our kids out into the real world where it's actually much safer. And that's where children need to develop. They need to play with each other in person. And we've got to tighten up on the online world where there are lots of strangers talking to your child if she's on social media.
Jonathan, you said giving social media to teenage girls is like handing them a gun. I think that is so potent. How do young women use social media differently than young men?
Yeah. So, first let's just look at how young women and young men are socially. Girls are much more interested in their relationships. They need a few good friends. They talk a lot. Boys don't talk as much. Boys do things together in larger groups. And so, social media, it has been completely devastating for girls because the way a friendship develops is you share secrets, you talk one-on-one, you talk in a small group, you gossip. But on social media, it's this giant conversation. People are performing. They're not really connecting. And this is happening in middle school, especially at a time when girls are just beginning to develop. They're just starting puberty. They're very self-conscious about their bodies. And what are people talking about? Your face, your hair, your boobs, your skin.
It makes me so sad how it pushes girls to be sexual and shallow.
I just opened an account on Snapchat because my daughter wants Snapchat. So, I opened an account for myself pretending to be a 14-year-old boy. I can't believe what it makes the girls do. It's disgusting. And so, if you're going to go through puberty on Snapchat or Instagram or TikTok, it's going to be bad for girls. Now, for boys, it's not as emotionally damaging, but boys get sucked into crazy destructive behavior. And it's things like, let's attack some kid so that we can get a video of it and post it. And it's again, it's dehumanizing. It's degrading. So this is why I say no kid should be on any of these social media platforms until at least 16. This is just not appropriate for children. You cannot make this stuff safe for children.
You were saying that though — you went on Snapchat as a 14-year-old. Your daughter is 15. So is your daughter on Snapchat?
No, she is not. I will not let her on Snapchat. What I've seen is so disgusting. It's not pornography — I'm not seeing pornography — but what I'm seeing is that it makes the girls all pose in this sexy, semi-porn way. It just pushes the girls to be shallow and sexy. So, no way I'm letting my daughter on Snapchat. Oh, and also Snapchat keeps pushing me to connect with people I don't know. And that's how you get in — that's how you start talking to adults in other countries who want money or sex from you.
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Okay, since we have Jonathan here, we wanted to hear from parents and from teens. Carrie, she says her 17-year-old son Nick spends 10 hours a day on his phone, even watching videos in the shower. Wow, Nick, I didn't know you could bring the phone in the shower. But apparently —
I didn't either. Yeah, it's turned into like an issue. Whenever I go to take a shower, I end up with the phone in the shower.
So, because you can't be without the phone long enough to shower.
I guess I can. I just like the attention span. I like to watch the videos. They're interesting to me.
Okay. So, for Carrie, let's hear from you. What concerns you most about Nick's phone usage? Thank you both for being here, by the way. Thank you, Nick, for joining.
Thank you for having us. Thank you and gratitude for having us and letting us talk to Jonathan and yourself about this. What concerns me the most is really the mental health issue. Anxiety, depression — especially depression — is very prevalent in our family on both sides, my husband's side and my side. Addiction is also huge in our family. And my main concern is that this addiction to the phone will turn into an addiction of something else: drugs, alcohol, pornography, all of the things that could be available.
And we were talking about him being in the shower with it. I realized last summer he was coming in from cheer practice and I was in the kitchen. The garage is right off the kitchen and I could hear the Instagram Reels going, and it's literally a 20-foot walk from his car into the kitchen, and he couldn't be not entertained for that amount of time. So, in passing I said something to our 20-year-old daughter, Molly. I said, "Hey, do you know your brother? Like, I'm starting to see that this might be a problem." And she goes, "Mom, he's in the shower and he's got the Instagram Reels going and he's got the TikToks going and all of this." And that's when I was like, "This is a real problem."
Nick, do you think you're addicted? Do you think you have a problem?
Oh, yes. 100%. 100% there's a problem.
Okay, that's a good start. That's a good start. Is it, Jonathan, a good start?
That's a very good start. If he sees that there's a problem, then it's going to definitely be possible to solve it. And so, Carrie, you're absolutely right to worry about his mental health. Now, for girls, the connection between social media use and depression, anxiety is much stronger. It sounds like — Nick, are you suffering from depression, anxiety right now, or is that not really your issue now?
That's not really an issue right now, I wouldn't say.
Right. Okay. Because what I see happening is we focused a lot on social media and girls because that's a very strong connection. That's really devastating the girls. And it took me a while to realize while I was writing the book that the story for boys is actually very different and addiction is at the center. So, Carrie, Nick, do you know the word dopamine? Do you know what dopamine means?
The neurotransmitter. Yes.
Yeah. Okay. So I get watching the videos. Well, what dopamine really is, it's said to be the reward neurotransmitter because it makes us feel good. But the key thing is it's the motivation neurotransmitter. So when you do something and then you get a reward, you then are motivated to do it again. And then you get the reward and you dig yourself deeper and deeper. And if you do it a lot, your dopamine neurons adapt. They're trying to get back to a normal level, so they become less sensitive to dopamine. So now you need more and more dopamine. So, Nick, what happens if you are separated from your phone for an hour or two? Is that no problem, or do you start to feel something?
I feel it. I can go an hour or two. I would say it's more of like the longer hours without it.
Okay. What happens to you when you go hours without it?
I just want to sit there and just like watch a video. I don't necessarily — I want something to entertain me.
Mhm. Okay. Well, good. I saw Carrie shaking her head. Carrie.
Yeah. When he does not have access to social media or his phone, he gets very agitated. He gets very angry. He has what I would call a teenage temper tantrum. He cannot go hours without a phone. We went on a cruise last summer and he was miserable the whole time because he didn't have access to the phone if we weren't on land.
Wow. Can I ask you, but don't you have to be without it in school? Because hasn't Florida banned the phones in schools? They have on paper banned the phones in schools? I think he can tell you.
Yeah. They've banned it like by law, but it's really like a school-to-school basis. Every school's different. So, for the majority of the schools, I believe it's our electronics that we get, ThinkPad services. Some schools even get MacBooks. They all like — they just start to break down because they're so old and they're so overused. The issue is the school technology is not good, and so they have to get on their personal electronics in order to complete the class because everything is online.
Okay. Even when — that's a separate issue, which is a very serious issue, which is that all of this ed tech, all of these screens in front of students, it turns out is really bad for their education. Test scores have been dropping around the world since 2012, in part because of the educational technology. But let's get back to the question of addiction, because Nick, what you said, I was about to say, oh good, well then it's not really addiction, it's just a habit. But what Carrie said tells me that you are addicted, your brain is addicted. And here's how I know. Because Anna Lembke, one of our country's foremost experts on addiction, she wrote the book Dopamine Nation. She says the five universal symptoms of withdrawal from an addictive substance — this is what happens to addicts when you take away the drug for a day. Here are the five: irritability, insomnia, dysphoria, craving, and anxiety. And it sounds like you got most of those, which tells me that your brain is dependent on constant stimulation. Are you able to read a book? Can you read a whole book, like, you know, an hour at a time paying attention, or is that hard for you?
I can read a book. I wouldn't say I can read the whole book, but I can read a majority of —
You cannot read a whole hour at a time.
Absolutely not. You cannot.
Okay. So, Nick, what I'm going to recommend for you is what I'm just drawing from what the experts say: if this is a dopamine issue, and clearly it is, then the way to break it is to go a month without it. You have to go through detox. The first few days, the first week will be hard. But then what you're going to find — and this is what my students at NYU find — your life opens up. You can pay attention. You have more time in your day. You experience things. So, if you can find a way, the two of you working together, you know, ideally you could start it — if you can take a vacation somewhere, if you could send him to some sort of summer thing for a week or two or a month, summer camp or some experience, that really helps. So make the real world as interesting as possible, but what would really help you is going a month to let your brain reset itself to a normal setting.
I see a space though, Jonathan. When you say a month, can you imagine — he can't be without it for an hour. So the idea of a month feels like punishment, feels like torture. Feels like, how in the world is he going to do that? Are you getting anxiety even hearing this, Nick?
Like you're going to be disconnected from the world, get disconnected from the world, disconnected from your friends and what that means and all of that.
Nick, do you think you could do that or is that impossible?
I wouldn't say it's impossible. I feel like it would take a lot out of me. It would take everything out of me to do it.
Can I ask this, Jonathan? Can I interrupt? Is it like other addictions where you have to hit rock bottom or at least reach a place where you see — I mean, in the beginning Nick says he realizes that he's an addict and has a problem, but maybe he doesn't think the problem is enough to actually cause him long-term problems and doesn't understand the consequences of the long-term problems. So until you actually realize that this is dangerous to my brain and my mental health, why do you need to give it up?
Yeah, that's right. That's the way to think about it. So Nick, let me ask you a question. Do you want someday to get married? Do you want to have a girlfriend and a wife or a spouse? Is that something you want?
Okay. Do you think that a woman would find appealing a man who is on TikTok all day long and is not capable of paying attention?
And do you want to have a job someday? Do you want to earn money and support yourself, support a family?
And do you think any employer is going to find it useful to hire someone who can't focus on what they're supposed to focus on and is always on multiple screens and watching videos?
