The first generation to spend adolescence with smartphones… Impaired social, cognitive, and emotional functions
Depression, self-harm, bullying, etc. on the rise… Measures to reduce social use are needed
◇Generation Anxiety/Written by Jonathan Haidt/Translated by Lee Chung-ho/528 pages/24,800 won/Woongjin Knowledge House
![[책의 향기]Children who live with smartphones… grow up with anxiety and helplessness](https://dimg.donga.com/wps/NEWS/IMAGE/2024/08/09/126440745.9.jpg "[책의 향기]Children who live with smartphones… grow up with anxiety and helplessness")
This is a must-read for parents of children who are so obsessed with their smartphones that they don’t even blink. The new book, subtitled “How the Digital World is Making Our Children Sick,” explores how digital devices are affecting Generation Z, born after 1996.
In a 2022 report by the Pew Research Center in the United States, 46% of teenagers responded that they are online “almost all the time.” The oldest generation of Generation Z began puberty around 2009, right when information technology (IT) was becoming a part of our daily lives. Following the release of the iPhone in 2007, front-facing cameras were added to smartphones in 2010. After Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012, the number of people posting photos of themselves on their personal accounts increased significantly. They have become the first generation in history to spend their adolescence carrying around an exciting and addictive “Aladdin’s lamp” in their pocket.
The author, an American social psychologist, calls the new way Generation Z is growing up the ‘Great Rewiring of Childhood’. Unlike the older generation who grew up through small-scale community interactions such as play, IT devices have taken over that role. According to animal psychology research, play is a task that connects and completes the brain circuits of young mammals, and is a key means of learning the skills necessary for living as an adult. If play, which performs this function, is lost, social, cognitive, and emotional damage is inevitable.
In fact, Generation Z, who chose IT devices instead of play during their growing up years, have become the “anxious generation” that is overly sensitive, chronically anxious, and unable to escape from apathy. Adolescent depression, self-harm, suicide, online sexual exploitation, and cyberbullying are also on the rise. According to a study that tracked 19,000 children born in 2000 in the UK, girls who responded that they spent more than five hours on social media on weekdays were three times more likely to suffer from depression than girls who responded that they did not spend any time on social media at all.
The author says that the cause of the great reorganization of childhood is not only IT but also overprotection of children. In particular, in the US, UK, and Canada, there is a growing tendency to think that if children are allowed to go outside without parental supervision, they will become easy targets for criminals. The argument is that parents’ choice to give their children smartphones instead of letting them go outside to play has fueled the ‘anxiety generation.’
In order to prevent mental anxiety in children triggered by IT devices, it is emphasized that efforts by families alone are not enough, and that the government, companies, schools, and parents must work together. It presents four core guidelines:
– Banning smartphone use before high school
– Banning social media use before the age of 16
– Banning cell phone use at school
– Expanding play and independent behavior without adult supervision.
Realistically, it is nearly impossible to implement all of these. However, it is clear that it is time to make a ‘bold decision’ to drastically reduce the time spent using IT devices.
Reporter Kim So-min [email protected]
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2024-08-09 21:29:37