Background
Modern life presses against human nature, sparking tensions and behavioral shifts that feel undesirable and differ from our species’ past. It’s almost as if our evolutionary biology collides with modernity. The way our brains are wired in today’s technological and societal context is driving behavioral changes that can feel unsettling. Humans in the last century and a half have had an industrial production thrust upon us. Then came open markets, globalization, and digital media, an unstoppable tide thrust upon us. All of which gives us instant access to knowledge about the state of the world in a way that we’ve never had historically. In the past, humans only saw a family, maybe their village. There was no mass communication, but with digital media you can see the gilded life of someone on a private jet a thousand miles away. You can even live stream their private jet experience. You can theoretically order a Versace bag and have it arrive in a couple of hours, if only you had the means. That creates a certain tension. You can have any experience you want to because of the system of markets that we have put in place. Historically, it took generations for texts like the Bible or Quran, or systems like monarchies, to permeate society and shape its beliefs. However, now you can push the right message to someone and affect their mind quite considerably.
Things change at different speeds, while evolution, a patient sculptor, chisels the mind across vast stretches of time. For tens of millennia, our psychological growth unfolded at this glacial pace, a quiet shaping of thought and instinct. Culture, by contrast, shifts more gradually, its currents gathering speed only in recent centuries. Then, with the Industrial Revolution, something profound stirred, a deep, mysterious upheaval in how we live together, its full meaning still eluding us.
The Introduction of Newspapers
The dawn of newspapers brought a quiet revolution. In the 17th and 18th centuries, they trickled into public life offering weekly broadsheets, dense with text, delivering news of wars, kings, and trade to a small, literate elite. They were ponderous things, read slowly by candlelight, their rhythm tied to the pace of handwritten dispatches and horse-drawn delivery. Yet they sank roots into the mind, offering a window beyond the village, a steady drip of the world’s pulse.
Then came the 19th century, and newspapers raced forward. Steam-powered presses churned out daily editions, shrinking the lag between event and reader. Sensational headlines, bold, brash and brief, replaced the measured prose of old. Penny papers like The Sun in New York slashed stories to bite-sized dispatches, hooking the masses with crime, scandal and gossip. Printers and editors, masters of this new brevity, soon fed their craft into magazines and serialized novels, think Dickens, whose cliffhangers in Household Words owed a debt to the newspaper’s knack for snaring attention fast.
The Introduction of TV
Television arrived with a spark, quicker than the plodding spread of newspapers yet a mere flicker compared to today’s digital deluge. In its early days, it cast a hypnotic spell, children sprawled before glowing screens, entranced for hours, lured by a world beyond their living rooms.
Decades later, the pace quickened. MTV burst onto the scene, gamifying the medium with a jolt of adrenaline. Programs once stretched across thirty leisurely minutes shrank into three-minute music videos, sharp, vivid bursts of sound and color. Directors honed their craft in this crucible of rapid cuts, packing stories into fleeting frames. Soon, those same visionaries carried their frenetic rhythm into Hollywood, shaping TV series like The Sopranos and Game of Thrones. These shows pulsed with a new intensity, dense with characters, layered with intrigue, proof that television had evolved from a passive hum into a relentless, captivating force.
The Accelerating Changes
What happens if the media consumption suddenly gets a 100 times more attractive or addictive, or short-term dopamine focused? There are massive and broad societal implications that we don’t fully understand. The velocity of the changes are especially concerning. The changes that are coming to us because of technology these days are quite Earth shattering, and so rapid, that they are changing the basic conditions of childhood.
other sources collated by Our World in Data
Image source: Our World in Data
About 10-20 years ago, a lot of folks were building mobile social applications and they figured out that gamification with levels becomes highly addicting. They built it into these products. We then took another step, and handed it over to AI. Now, AI implementing gamification without it being explicit, ref. TikTok. We had the gamification of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, which came in the for of likes, re-tweets, follower count. Now it has transitioned into something even more pernicious, which is some black box in TikTok that knows this is going to maximize the dopamine hits. Shortly thereafter Facebook (reels/stories), Instagram (stories), YouTube (shorts) etc. implemented similar mechanisms as TikTok. Now it’s everywhere, and the behavior resulting from this is doom scrolling.
What Is This Latest Surge in Media Consumption Doing to Our Kids’ Brains?
The Role of Dopamine
Technological shifts may creep in quietly, but their impact roars, wildly outsized, reshaping us before we notice. As a little experiment Jonathan Haidt posed a question to his sophomores at New York University Stern School of Business: “Who watches Netflix weekly?” Almost every hand goes up. Stories, after all, are irresistible. “Who wishes that Netflix was never invented?” Silence. No hands went up. Humans live in stories. We tell stories. We’ve always told stories. The stories on TV are so much better today, than when we were kids. There’s no problem with stories.
Haidt then went on to ask about TikTok, and the mood shifted: “How many of you use TikTok, or similar, weekly?” The great majority of hands go up. “Who whishes that TikTok was never invented?” The great majority of hands go up(!) What’s happening? These are 19-year old smart kids.
These things aren’t stories. A story is entertaining, but it typically doesn’t give you a huge hit of dopamine. If it’s really well told, it can be an aesthetic experience. You can lose yourself, but it is not about the quick dopamine reward system. Whereas TikTok and other short-form content formats are designed to optimize for whatever triggers a small dopamine release in your reinforcement pathways. Because there’s a behavior response loop, which you didn’t have. With television, you could adjust the volume lower, or change the channel. Those were your only options. There was not a feedback loop where the television is rewarding you for certain actions. What TikTok pioneered is the concept that we only care about what makes you pause. What makes you click. What makes you react.
We have to go back in time prior to what we today call humans, because the brain changes very slowly. What was built in by the time you get to mammals and primates is the basic architecture of our minds. We have a reinforcement system, which has worked really well for other animals. When certain things happen, there are signals that this is advancing your evolutionary project (survive, eat have sex, leave offspring). If something happens, it means that you are making progress. E.g. if you find a mate, you get a reward, and it feels good. Dopamine is the molecule of more, as described in the book “The Molecule of More” by Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long. The way dopamine works, is that you would like to continue this activity to get more of that feeling. Evolutionarily, this has made sense. However, in the context of social media, it does not. It is not self-serving.
The Role of Status
Systems of status go back before humans and have often been a matter of life and death. Who among the males gets to mate. Thus, maintaining high status has been extremely important from an evolutionary standpoint. We certainly see this in adolescence. Especially males, will gladly do something that knocked a few years off of their life (at the end of their life), if they could be more popular today. It’s the short-term thinking. We are compelled to take actions that seems so imperative to us now, because they will benefit our reputation.
At this stage, there are so many things being done to hack young people’s concerns for their reputation and the prolonged dopamine release. This is not good for our brain. It’s one thing to find a mate and have sex, leading to this dopamine release. Or, the drive to find some more ripe pears to eat, and then find some more till our stomachs are full. Yet on TikTok, scrolling becomes an addiction, fueled by the unpredictable thrill of variable rewards. No human ever before in evolution were experiencing that hundreds of millions of people could be digesting one person’s most candid comment, or worse, most embarrassing or thrilling moment. As humans, we evolved for small group interactions, with a lot of gossip.
When kids are talking in small groups and someone says something stupid, and others make fun of them, people laugh and then you move on. However, when you put kids on a stage where potentially millions of people could be laughing at them, and they could be the internet topic of the day, and it might last for the whole week, a lot of those kids are considering suicide. When you are being shamed and it seems like you’re in the out group at this scale, a lot of kids will think of killing themselves, because that’s a way (although very shortsighted and drastic) to relieve the pain. Even as an adult, you can get upset by the comments you receive on something that you post. Now, imagine if you were 12 or 13. At that stage, your brain is not fully developed. You don’t have a foundation to properly evaluate the significance of the situation you’re in or to regulate your emotions effectively. As a result, in such a moment a permanent solution to a temporary problem might seem like a reasonable idea to a young teenager.
The Anxious Generation (people born after 1995)
Brain Development and the Most Vulnerable Years of Our Lives
The book “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt, has the subtitle “How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness“. The childhood rewired between 2010 and 2015 became unrecognizable. The change that happened in those five years is beyond what anyone could have ever imagined. Millennials are fine because they were largely already done with puberty by 2010. They didn’t have smartphones while going through puberty.
Starting at the ages 11 to 12, and it begins typically a little earlier for girls. 15-16 year of age is kind of the peak in terms of vulnerability for teens. Especially early puberty, the early teens and the mid- teens, that is the period where your brain is rewiring. It’s literally changing over from the child form, to the adult form. The adult form being much more competent, but much less flexible (have less plasticity). We don’t respond to brain damage as flexibly as we did when we were children because most things are locked in.
The difference between the Millennials and Gen-Z, is that the Millennials did not go through puberty on smartphones and met up with each other in person, saw each other and made eye contact. They laughed together. They had a recognizably human childhood. By 2015, this social dynamic had changed dramatically.
The Role of the Smartphone, Connectivity, Social Media and Gamification
Imagine you’re in 2000, seven years old when the iPhone launches. The iPhone doesn’t change things for the first few years. You are nine when social media goes super viral. When the gamification of social media really starts getting ramped up with the retweet-button, the share-button, the like-button. Social media changes radically in the beginning of 2009. From now on, it’s no longer so much about me connecting with your page. Now it’s about the news feed and likes. People get really hooked through the gamification aspects, and feel compelled to accumulate likes and views.
In 2011 – 2012 most people have changed to smartphones. In 2010, you get the first front-facing camera on the iPhone, and then Samsung copies that right away. In 2012, Facebook buys Instagram, and that’s when it really becomes popular to chase likes, followers, views etc. In this period, everyone’s getting high-speed internet. While In 2010, most people didn’t have high-speed internet, which meant that the Millennials in 2010 could not spend all day on phones. By 2015, with Gen-Z you can be on your phone all day long. Half of Gen-Z in the US, American teenagers, say they’re online almost constantly. If they seem to be talking to you, they are thinking about what is going on their phone. If they are on the bus next to other kids, they are on their phone. If they are in class and the teacher is talking, they are on their phone.
Mimetic Desires and Dopamine Triggers on Demand
Watching the funniest thing that happened on planet Earth in the last hour is by definition going to be funnier or more entertaining than three friends having a burger. Unfortunately, local reality can no longer compete.
Currently, at any given moment, we have access or can create a desire for anything, and that is overriding our sensory system. If I was sitting in a village without a phone, I wouldn’t have a desire to be on a private jet. However, now I’m sitting on my phone and I’m seeing this funniest moment, or this most beautiful person, or this incredible experience that I am not a part of.
If you see someone with a million likes on their photo, you think to yourself “I don’t have a million likes on my photo“. Now suddenly you want that. It creates a new emptiness in your brain or spirit that didn’t exist before. You are now on this constant circuit looking for what to do to create a million likes, because that is something that others have that you don’t have.
Suddenly, you have created a desire for something you did not know that you wanted, and now you feel less happy because you don’t have what this other person seems to have. This is called mimetic desire and humans seems to be hardwired for this. As humans, we tend to copy other people’s desires. Now, through the widespread high-speed internet, smartphones and social media we have facilitated the copying of other peoples desires at an incredibly large scale.
Most people don’t know what they want, but are rather incredibly attuned to what everyone else in their reference group wants. That has always been the case. Advertisers in the 19th century began to pick up on that. How do you make it seem like everybody wants this product? Advertising has always been about about trying to hack this mimetic desire mechanism. Influencer culture, in a sense, takes this to its extreme.
There has always been this notion of celebrity. The celebrity replaced the monarchy. Replaced the church. Nowadays with the influencer culture, the celebrity status is accessible. People realize that they have access to being in that state, so it creates this deep dark hole for those who do not achieve it. I’m not in that state, but I should be or I could be. Therefore I have this deep sense of emptiness, because theoretically I could be that person. It’s not like there is a caste system. It’s not like there is a monarchy where your blood determines whether or not you get to be a king. Or, in the case of the church, where the Lord determines whether you get to be in charge. In this case someone got there, but I’m not there. As a result, I get to see how others achieved it. My reference library historically was like four to six sitcoms a week. Now my reference library consists of four to six TikTok videos every five minutes. Suddenly there’s all these different things that I don’t have. Statuses that I don’t have accumulated.
When you combine this with the fact that we typically tend to get the highest dopamine release in the anticipation of getting something, and it’s at its highest just before getting it (right before you get it, is when you have the best feeling), it explains why we are so addicted to the short reels of these extreme moments. We constantly get served these incredible moments from all over the world, we incorporate the desire to be there or experience that moment, which triggers large amounts of dopamine release in the anticipation of getting it. Then, you continue to scroll to the next such moment. A new desire copied, a new anticipation built up, a new dopamine release, and so on.
When you have had hyper stimulation of quick and easy dopamine, those systems downregulate. They try to restore homeostasis. Now, it takes more stimulation to get them to the normal level. This leads to dopamine depletion, and reality seems dull, which leads people to get sad and depressed. The feeling of not having an adequate life sets in and this can for some, over time, lead to depression and/or anxiety.
What Do We Do About It?
Some schools have opted for pouches at their premises for the smartphones, or smartphone lockers.
One of the issues we face is that any kid who doesn’t get a phone, is left out, feeling exiled. The kid says to his mom that he is the only in the 5th grade without a phone, and they are making fun of me. This hurts us as parents, so we give the kid an old phone and re-activate it. This leads to everyone having a smartphone. In other words, pressure builds up so that everyone gets a bad outcome. It’s a downwards spiral and kids get smartphones at an increasingly earlier age, and the peer pressure makes it spread to the rest of the class or peer group quicker. You sort of get there because everyone else is doing it.
Gen-Z is a generation that has been the most damaged. They are going to be less than they would have been. They are less ambitious. They are less successful. They are less happy. They are less competent. When asked, people from Gen-Z, typically agree with this representation.
At 9-10 years old they desperately want a phone with TikTok and similar apps. However, by the time they are in late high school, or certainly college, the overwhelming view found among Gen-Z is that: “This messed us up.” They feel trapped on social media. When asked: “Why are you spending so much time on social media (TikTok, Instagram, etc.) every day?” (In many cases, so much time that they don’t have time to do anything useful for anyone). Young people say that they have to because they need to know what people are talking about, and they don’t want to be left out and alone. And when asked if they wish these apps were never invented, they say “Yes”.
We need to learn from this, so the same mistakes are not repeated moving forwards. We need to take action. Now!
Collective Action
The solution to this problem is collective action.
You are in contact with the parents of your kids friends. What if you spoke with the parents of a few friends who haven’t given their kids phones yet and said: “Let’s spare our kids a phone-based childhood, in which they’re tethered to screens. Do you agree with me on that? If we work together, we can actually give our kids a fun childhood. Are you with me?“
Collective action on all initiatives, starting with the four below foundational norms:
- No Smartphone Before High School
Younger kids should not have the internet in their pocket. Give them a flip-phone, or a phone watch, but not a smartphone. - No Social Media till 16 Years of Age
- Phone Free Schools
Lock up the phones in a Yonder pouch, or in a phone locker in the morning, and they get it back at the end of the day. - More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world.
Until the 1990s, kids had a proper childhood. They were outside a lot. They had adventures. They learned to be self-governing and self-supervising. We took that away from them in the beginning of the 1990s. It was more or less completely gone by 2015. Our kids never get any fun or adventure, so all they have are their screens.
If we do those four things, we break out of these Collective Action problems. We restore childhood. We delay the full social media immersion until age 16, when they’re halfway+ through puberty. We’re not giving our child a smartphone until High School. Let’s just commit to that. We should be sending our kids out. It’s okay to give kids a way to contact you, but as parents you all agree to that there’s no smartphone and no social media until 16 years of age. If some of the parents don’t agree, then you get this very unhealthy class system amongst the social groups of the kids.
Holding the line on your own is hard. It is much easier if you have several parents holding the line. It’s even better if it can be framed as not about holding a line, but rather about offering a more positive vision of childhood. You and the other parents all agree to make extra efforts to give your kids an exciting fun childhood, where you do exciting things together. The other kids can be home on their bed swiping all day long. Let them do that. They are basically going to end up anxious and never having really done anything to grow up. Whereas your kids are getting together for sleepovers or you’re taking them bowling. To the extent that you are allowed to, you step back and allow them to be self-governing. Encourage them go ride their bicycles to friends houses, or to the playground.
Variations to Spark Creativity
If they want to do screen time on e.g. a parent’s screen (let’s say an iPad, without social media apps), tell them that they need come up with a creative project. E.g. one hour of creative project you can do. One hour of TV or 1 hour of iPad. One for one. They have to earn it by doing something creative. You have to be bored, then your mind clears and you come up with a great creative idea. Writing/drawing movies, writing/drawing stories, making books, sculptures, making songs.
To learn more, check out the website: anxiousgeneration.com
It has all kinds of activities for parents and teachers and Gen-Z.
Also, see the Substack page: After Babel
Contains more info on why this is so different from any previous “Tech Panic“.
Consider reading the book: The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
📚 Sources and References
- The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
- The Anxious Generation website
- After Babel
- All-In Podcast – The Jonathan Haidt Interview (1h 13min)
- Our World in Data