PAUL POPS THE QUESTION
So… on the 30th of April, alongside thousands of other folk, we filed into the quite remarkable setting of the Union Chapel, to listen to man of the moment and best-selling author of The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt.
And quite the drilling he got. Sarah Montague, she of World at One and Today on Radio 4 fame had absolutely no intention of giving him an easy ride.
Thoroughly put through his paces, Sarah challenged him on the scale of the teenage mental health problem, his central thesis around the ‘great rewiring of childhood’, the importance of play, and the vital role that exposure to risk and fear have in developing social resilience amongst young people.
More of which, below…
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Jonathan explained that 2012 sees a step change for the worse in all the data related to mental health amongst young people, particularly girls; the rates of anxiety and depression simply go through the roof, and this phenomenon is observed right across Western Europe and the US.
But some people claim this ‘snowflake generation’ is just over-sensitive. That they’re over-reporting anxiety and depression. Or indeed, that the medical profession is coddling them, treating as an illness perfectly normal variations in mental health. That this is, in effect, a combination of heightened awareness and over-diagnosis.
Jonathan brings that theory crashing down, with the simple observation that, if that were the case, we wouldn’t also be witnessing the most horrendous statistics of all: the data that shows rates of hospitalization for self-harm, and suicide rocketing since 2012. There is quite simply no doubt that we are facing into the largest mental health crisis ever seen.
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Jonathan’s central thesis holds that in one fell swoop we have fundamentally rewired childhood, in a way that has never before been seen. He points to the mass adoption of smartphones, with front-facing cameras and high-speed connectivity in around 2012 as the moment we rewired childhood from a play-based childhood, to a phone-based childhood. Our children have gone from spending the vast majority of their time in face-to-face social interactions to spending that time interacting through a screen. Disembodied, asynchronous and superficial social connections have replaced embodied, synchronous and meaningful relationships.
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Delving more deeply into the role of play in development, Jonathan makes clear that it is only through play that adolescent brains can develop their vital sensitivity to the culture in which they exist. In essence, unstructured social play is where teenagers in particular ‘train’ their brains for an adulthood lived in a social setting - where they learn to read signals, make alliances and form a deep understanding of the culture in which they operate. Without this ‘play’, without ‘hanging out’, teenagers have no means to learn the vital cues and behavioural responses that allow them to navigate adult society smoothly and effectively.
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Jonathan spoke about the role of risk and fear in social development. He explained that, more than anything else, a phone-based childhood removes the exposure to genuine risk - and therefore fear - of the developing social brain. You may think that’s a good thing. Surely we should avoid risk, avoid fear? But you’d be wrong. Regular exposure to manageable risk - risk that triggers genuine feelings of fear - is vital to developing confidence and resilience as an adult. To knowing you can handle any circumstance. In essence, children and teenagers learn how to handle risk and fear in a safe social environment where failure, though it may feel huge, is not life-altering. This prepares them for the greater risks and fear that come with adulthood. Lives lived behind a screen essentially mean lives where social risks are never faced, and fear is never felt. There is always the option to simply log out, turn off, walk away; to not hit the like button or just leave the group. But face-to-face life doesn’t have a ‘log off’ button. Real social life has real social risks: that argument; that failed kiss; that moment you need to be funny and the words just won’t come; that moment you need to shut up and the words come tumbling out. Without the regular exposure to real, face-to-face socialising in their teenage years, our teenagers are not getting the chance to develop the resilience they need to manage anxiety in social situations.
So it’s clear that the mental health crisis facing our teenagers is real and present. And that the rapid rewiring of the adolescent years through phone-first socialising is at the root of the issue.
But it’s also clear that the loss of face-to-face time, the loss of time hanging-out together - with all the social risk and jeopardy that that entails - means there is no opportunity for our teenagers to develop their social resilience, to learn how to confidently navigate the culture around them, which is leaving them chronically anxious as a result.
So we took the opportunity to ask Jonathan directly: in a world where youth services have been decimated, high streets left to rot, and leisure services cynically culled, what options are our teenagers left with? Where can they go to be together, and learn to be themselves? And what should we do about it?
We were blown away by his answer. He cut straight to the chase…
The # IRL REVOLUTION couldn’t be more needed.
The # IRL REVOLUTION couldn’t be more essential.
The # IRL REVOLUTION will be totally transformational.
And, most importantly, it will take an entrepreneurial, commercial solution to give our teenagers what they so desperately need: a safe space to be together and be themselves.
If you agree with us (and Jonathan!) that every UK teenager deserves a space to socialise IRL, then don’t forget to spread the gospel.
SHARE THIS BLOG amongst your whatsapp groups, your networks, indeed anyone you feel cares about our teenagers.
FOLLOW US on instagram.
ADD YOUR VOICE by tagging us in with #IRLrevolution whenever you spot anyone else talking about this issue.
Help us build this army. Because every extra person who joins the fight to give teenagers somewhere to socialise in real life helps helps our voice to be heard and our impact to be felt.
Vive the # IRL REVOLUTION!
