Anxious Generation – How Safetyism and Social Media Are Damaging the Kids

> For example, nowadays, parents expect their children to be free to go and do groceries alone or play outside without adult supervision only at around the age of 10 to 12 (if not even higher).

Except, parents nowadays can get arrested for even less. [1]

[1] https://reason.com/2015/06/11/11-year-old-boy-played-in-his-...

> The kids are growing up playing with their phones rather than playing outside with other kids, learning the ropes of, well—life.

With suburbia and car centric infrastructure expanding, where are they even supposed to play?

>Kids also become overprotected in other ways, such as not hearing other views or not being able to handle opposing views. No wonder academia is nowadays the exact opposite of free speech and the scientific method.

I wonder how much the scientific method went into coming to that conclusion.

Also if anything we are way too exposed to other people's views. Before you could speak to someone random and there was a much higher chance that their opinions were unique because they weren't the next person who binges on r/all. We had many more forums and less recommendation algorithms driving what we consume. Now you overhear people talking about something you just saw the other day online in public all the time.

It is similar to how globalisation is making everywhere feel the same whereas in the past people had completely distinct cultures from one country to the next.

The point about the parks rings so true to me. We have a playground near us that was built in the 50s-ish and the slide is probably 12-15ft high, with just a ladder. The swings are about the same height and you can swing pretty high. Honestly, even as an adult it's a bit thrilling to go down the slide. You can imagine what it must be for kids.

Meanwhile, the brand new park near my parents: the slides top out at like 6 feet. The swings are made so they don't swing high. There's absolutely zero risk of falling. No monkey bars, etc.

Very sad

I totally agree.

I have seen the changes working with children for over 20 years.

The mass media have a huge impact on parent's over protection of their children.

The media claims, which are untrue, that we live in a society with a rapist, a child abductor and paedophile in every street will no doubtedly have a chilling effect on parenting.

Schools also play a massive role in this by perpetuating this myth.

Every school in Surrey UK where I live have huge 8-10 feet high fences all around the school to prevent unwanted innocent passersby looking at the children playing and more scarily, to prevent those rapists, child abductors and paedophiles living in every street from entering the school grounds.

Children are living in prisons, constantly monitored by CCTV.

The panopticon designs of the buildings and environment.

What does this say to the children living in this protected environment?

It says; this is a very frightening place to be, there are dangerous predators who might abduct you.

No wonder then that children are presenting with acute anxiety disorders.

This is most probably why parents allow their children to have carte blache when it comes to internet access.

When I was a child in the 60's I roamed the streets from morning until night. I went home when I got hungry. Most children I knew had the same experience.

Are there more paedophiles living in the world today compared to 100 years ago? I doubt it.

One very strange phenomenon is that 95% of all child abuse happens in the family home by close family members and not by some stranger lurking in the shadows.

> One of these forces is unfettered access to social media.

I think we should reframe this to make it a bit more clear who the enemy is: We're allowing ad companies unfettered access to our kids.

It's not communicating with their friends that's a problem, it's using a medium that is incentivized to encourage poor dopamine hygiene.

These platforms are designed to harm their users because unhealthy users are more profitable than healthy users.

One of many factors. Another is the dissolution of community and intimate time spent with other people (especially outside one's demographic) leading to what is basically insanity: thoughts and behaviors with no external "sanity check" or stop-gap (like an older more mature person mentoring a younger one to correct maladaptive thoughts and behaviors or even to just protect them from the onslaught of bad-faith actors).

Those older are also to blame for not taking a greater part in preventing this; but seeing as it's so widespread, there are most likely more systemic, societal-wide issues at play.

"No wonder academia is nowadays the exact opposite of free speech and the scientific method."

I was interested by what I was reading until I came across this sentence which really put me off. I doubt that academia is the opposite of free speech and the scientific method. I am sure there is good criticism to be said about academia in your country but such broad statements serve no purpose and only signal ideology.

There IS a movement countering this trend:

https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-is-free-range-parenting-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-range_parenting

As a parent, I have some mixed feelings about this. I absolutely want my kid to be independent and self-reliant ( and so far, unfortunately, I seem to be getting my wish ), but a lot depends on the kid you have. For example, mine is way too trusting towards strangers ( the way I used to be I suppose ) so I need to correct for that.

As for school and academia, doesn't it ( with exceptions in actual science ) select for conformity and obedience? It was already pretty bad when I finishing my MBA so I have no idea how bad it has gotten.

Don't panic over that! Panic over this!

i'm glad research and publications like these are coming out, and they only seem to be getting more popular/picked up by the media (Podcast Center for Humane Technology?)

is there going to be such an increase in momentum here that we actually see a change in 5-10 years? if younger millenials and now gen z are the ones taking the brunt of the impact, and are now becoming more aware of it, surely the societal/political movements will continue to gather pace.

is it just a matter of how well the social media companies can manipulate politicians/general populations perceptions of their own lives to prevent any kind of change?

to me a huge shift feels crucial and inevitable, but i know this perspective isn't common amongst my friends, especially those out of tech

I'm critical of Jonathan Haidt for a few reasons:

1. He's presenting himself as an expert on a topic far from his research expertise. His background per Wikipedia: "Haidt's main scientific contributions come from the psychological field of moral foundations theory, which attempts to explain the evolutionary origins of human moral reasoning on the basis of innate, gut feelings rather than logic and reason." This has nothing to do with developmental and clinical psychology/psychiatry. He's way out of his depth here.

2. He's part of the "intellectual dark web", a group of people who seek out fame with a particular audience niche, and prioritize that over truth.

3. I feel he's trying to please the audience and get out bestsellers, making the same mistakes he accuses others of making, e.g. lack of scientific rigor/open mindedness. Example: maybe Smartphones aren't that bad. Sure, they have a big impact, but it could be positive and negative. To make the book a bestseller, it pays to focus on the negatives.

I am interested in how scientists can isolate the increase in mental health problems from the more sophisticated diagnoses that we have now.

How do we know there is more mental health problems (a “bad” thing) vs more mental health problems are diagnosed and treated (a “good” thing)?

I just started reading the book this morning. I go to Hacker News and this is the top post. Either I have a third eye, or this is nothing more than a coincidence. This is also my first comment here, so apologies if I accidentally break a site rule.

> In those days, you'd be spending too much time in front of your screen, and the worst that could happen was you'd worsen your eyesight, end up somewhat socially inept, or even get a job in the industry once you grew up.

Social ineptness of nerds is not because they spend time in front of computers. It's much more the other way round: those with a predisposition to ineptitude like computers.

Is there any _scientific_ evidence rather than folklore/gut feeling backing up the sentence above?

It's not on them and perhaps not even on the parents. A lot of this may be from others. An example is a recent case in GGP of a coyote biting a child. Animal control culled three coyotes. Seems reasonable to me. Mankind has defended its children from the wild for millennia. Our children have explored and we've defended them when they stepped into danger.

But there are certainly those who believe that children should not explore bushes in a park https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1dt16au/well_...

If it were 1900 they'd blame newspapers for "damaging" kids. If it were 1930 they'd blame radio. If it were 1950 it'd be television. If it were 1980 it'd be video games. What all of these have in common is being completely bogus.

"kids are overcoddled yet exposed to potentially harmful content with smartphones"

which is it then?

My god seeing “kids are X these days” narrative on HN as anything but as an object of ridicule is upsetting

I'm not hiding anything by saying I'm on the left of the political spectrum. There is always a danger when criticizing aspects of capitalism that I don't understand capitalism or hate America, or want to live under communism. Anyway...

It irks me endlessly that many of the complaints about how the world is turning to crap has, at its root, capitalism. You think movies and TV are peddling filth? It sells. Think social media is corrupting our minds with disinformation? They are making lots of money at it. The news is constantly pushing stories about you you and/or your kids are in peril.

Again, to be clear, I'm not saying we need to get rid of capitalism. My point is look at the root causes and incentives, rather than blaming weak-minded liberals for having an agenda to ruin the country.

I also remember reading somewhere the frequency of mass shootings pre-2008-2010 decreased dramatically with the rise of social media. Right around the time Facebook use became ubiquitous. I was trying to find the source, but couldn't. I think it was a graph from Wikipedia.

one thing the author touches on that I'm curious about-- > academia is nowadays the exact opposite of free speech and the scientific method

I always see this bandied about as axiomatic, but I'm really curious if: a. this pertains outside of "softer" subjects and and the liberal arts b. this isn't a case of overblown media coverage of the occasional "how dare you say XYZ".

I'm a little skeptical of it because I know SV types love to pooh pooh academia, but I went to a devotedly conservative college (and a decade ago) so I'm hoping to hear from someone with recent experience and a lack of that implicit contempt for formal education.

obviously the pro-Palestinian protests exposed some serious issues with respect to speech on campus, but I'm more curious about the typical daily experience of students. are the morality police really so widespread, or is it overrepresented and limited to individual overzealous types and colleges like Oberlin with a reputation for such?

Safetyism in particular is the main culprit:

From "How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?":

https://archive.ph/jVOl3

> In a book entitled “The Coddling of the American Mind”, Mr Lukianoff and a social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, posit that overprotective parenting in the shadow of the war on terrorism and the great recession led to “safetyism”, a belief that safety, including emotional safety, trumps all other practical and moral concerns. Its bounds grew to require disinviting disfavoured campus speakers (see chart 1), protesting about disagreeable readings and regulating the speech of fellow students.

Does anxiety correlate to inflammatory ultra-processed diets?

Is there an incentive to self-report anxiety?