Gen Z Is Fine But Jonathan Haidt Is Not
David Roberts on Why It's Not the Cell Phones, Actually
Dear Republic,
When the mensches are all sitting around talking about their menschy things and drinking their (sensible) menschy beverages and David Roberts goes by, they look up and turn to each other and are like ‘that guy is a mensch.’ David is a founder of The Republic of Letters as well as of The Metropolitan Review. He writes the ever-intelligent and thoughtful Sparks from Culture, actively comments on like a million people’s Substack, and is in the running for Substack MVP. Here he weighs in on our raging Gen Z debate.
-The Editor
GEN Z IS FINE BUT JONATHAN HAIDT IS NOT
The Republic of Letters recently ran two articles “debating” the following question:1
“Is Gen Z The Worst Gen Ever Or Just Tolerably Bad?”
The way the “debate” question is framed is typical of The Republic of Letters’ dry humor.
The writers of the articles on either side of the question are Gen Z’ers in their twenties. The excellent quality of their articles underscores their similar conclusion, albeit expressed differently, that their Gen Z generation––born between 1997 and 2012––will ultimately be fine.
Notably, Gen Z is the first generation to grow up in the constantly online/smartphone era. The two Gen Z writers conclude that growing up this way has both its challenges and benefits.
I have long been suspicious of the contention that smartphones have jeopardized an entire generation’s mental health. That contention has struck me as a moral panic based on a misunderstanding between correlation and causation and a simplification of complex issues.
This misunderstanding and simplification has received widespread attention and acceptance based in no small part through the commercial efforts of an effective proselytizer named Jonathan Haidt.
Passionate intensity vs. nuance
Haidt’s theory is neatly summarized in the subtitle of his book The Anxious Generation:
How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.
Haidt is filled with certainty about this complex issue:
There is no other theory on the table. There's only [my] theory.1
Contrast that with the nuanced views of the two Gen Z authors in The Republic of Letters. Here’s Clare Ashcraft from her post Gen Z Is Worse Than You Think:
As a teenager, I thought internet communities were amazing and they still bring me fulfillment. Internet communities taught me that I wasn’t alone, there were people out there like me, and they gave me a place to experiment and learn about myself. I know they have given others so much. It’s wonderful that a young gay person in a prejudiced rural town can reach older gay people and understand that they can have a good life outside of where they came from. But these online communities also deprioritize our physical place in the world, which has consequences. We run the risk of becoming so disembodied and self-absorbed that we forget our obligations to ourselves and one another.
Here is steph :) with her different take thatGen Z is a typical generation but with a PR problem.
…the quiet majority of young adults are leading normal, innocuous lives, while a very vocal, very online minority is doing serious damage to our brand…this vocal minority effect is a burden every demographic must bear in the digital age — gen z just so happens to be in the spotlight as the latest subject of humanity’s age-old kids these days discourse. naturally, everyone has an opinion about whether or not we’re fit to be “real adults.”
The difference between correlation and causation
The Philadelphia Phillies have won the World Series exactly twice, in 1980 and 2008. In both years, my son Andrew and I were freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. A perfect example of correlation absent of any causation.2
As to Jonathan Haidt’s insistence on smartphones being the cause of a mental health epidemic, it’s worth repeating his comment.
There is no other theory on the table. There's only [my] theory.
Unfortunately for Haidt, there’s a compelling alternative theory as to why reported rates of teen mental health distress have increased over the past ten to fifteen years. It bears a lot of similarity to the most widely accepted theory of why autism diagnoses have increased significantly—better means of detection, less shame and stigma, and an expansion of what qualifies diagnostically.3
When you look for something more actively, using better tools, casting a wider net, and removing the shame of disclosure, you’re going to find a lot more of it.
What’s changed about “finding” mental health disorders:
Awareness increased through public campaigns.
Significantly destigmatized.
New and lower clinical thresholds for diagnosing depression and anxiety.
Widespread screening in schools.
More subtle survey questions in self-reporting.
Network effect of self-diagnosis; it’s become cool in certain teen groups to claim anxiety.4
Some additional common sense
Lucy Foulkes, an academic psychologist at the University of Oxford and an expert on adolescence, has pointed out that it’s likely that any number of past teen generations, under current circumstances of detection and publicity, would have similar rates of reported mental health disorders. Because the teen years have always been filled with anxiety.
Professor Foulkes writes:
…more teenagers are now accurately seeking help, but also because others will mislabel lower levels of distress as a mental health problem: both of these will bump up overall rates. I am certain that, had my friends and I been given anxiety questionnaires to fill out [when we were 13] our scores would have been off the scale. But teenage mental health wasn’t measured much then, so it didn’t make the headlines.”5
Unlike Haidt, however, Lucy Foulkes is not suggesting that hers is the only possible explanation. Could certain smartphone use be problematic? Of course it could.
Evidence
I’m not a social scientist but I can read and think critically. There have been many studies and experiments that have looked at whether smartphone use causes teen mental distress. Some studies have concluded “yes, somewhat,” and some “no, not at all.” It’s certainly a difficult causal relationship to measure in the “wild,” i.e., in real life with all sorts of confounding variables.
It’s also true of human nature that when you go looking for a causal relationship, you are predisposed to finding it.
I read one study that seemed different in its methodology. Researchers at Brigham Young University led by Professor Sarah Coyne conducted an eight-year study of the same set of 500 teens beginning in 2009. Each year the teens were asked to report their use of social media and their mental health. The study found no correlation between an individual teen’s self-reported changes in time spent on social media and their self-reported changes in their mental health.
Of course, one study can’t be dispositive, but at minimum the results of the study cast doubt on the simplistic Haidt thesis that social media usage has caused a mental health epidemic.6
As well, there was a recent convening of 120 experts on the subject of smartphone use and mental distress. The point of the convening was to go through various phases of claims and conclude with a series of consensus, science-based views.
The experts ended up finding consensus—93%-99% agreement—on 26 claims. What I found most telling was that the consensus of the experts found the evidence insufficient to support various bans or restrictions on teen smartphone use. For example:
Claim 24: 95% of the experts agreed that the evidence is insufficient to draw conclusions about the claim that if most parents waited until their children were in high school to give them their first smartphones (while providing basic phones or flip phones), it would benefit the mental health of adolescents overall.7
Jonathan Haidt wrote a Substack post about this very same convening of experts. In his post, he focused on a different preliminary claim related to claim 24:
No phones before high school would benefit mental health.
Haidt wrote that the experts supported this claim by a six to one margin. It’s true that 68% of the experts considered this claim “probably true,” 11% considered the claim “probably false,” and 21% had no opinion.
But at the end of the convening, when asked about the empirical evidence supporting the claim, less than 10% thought there was evidence that showed causality. Hence, that’s why 95% of these scientists reached the consensus that the evidence was insufficient. Reaching scientific consensus was the point of the convening.8
Making major policy changes based on insufficient evidence is usually a bad idea.
The Dangers
Haidt would like to ban or restrict teen use of smartphones. Specifically, he calls for no smartphone use at all before teens are in high school, i.e, when they’re about 14-15, no social media at all before 16, and phone-free schools.9
I see many dangers. What happens to the harmony of a household where parents are using their smartphones and their teens cannot? What are the consequences of cutting off an on-line lifeline for teens who feel particularly marginalized such as the LGBTQ community or teens who are physically disabled?10 How will bans be enforced and will predictably chaotically-enforced bans create a bifurcated teen society—another division between the haves and the have-nots?
And you really can’t address this topic without thinking about the future world that today’s teens will be trying to flourish in. It’ll be a world of increasingly powerful AI tools. In that world, which parents want their teens to be technologically left behind?
David Roberts had a forty-year career on Wall Street and now writes the Substack newsletter Sparks from Culture where he writes personal essays focused on wealth, class, and capitalism.
Jonathan Haidt on the Anxious Generation from Persuasion; March, 2024.
The next time an oldest male from our family could possibly attend UPenn as a freshman is not until 2040. Sorry, Phillies fans!
Autism Rates Have Increased 60-Fold. I Played a Role in That by Allen Frances; New York Times; June 2025. Dr. Frances is a psychiatrist. He led the American Psychiatric Association’s task force charged with creating the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Lucy Foulkes short video on the link between increased awareness and increased diagnoses and claims of mental illnesses.
Lucy Foulkes: I’m an expert on adolescence: here’s why a smartphone ban isn’t the answer, and what we should do instead. The Guardian; June 2024
The BYU/Sarah Coyne study: Does time spent using social media impact mental health: an eight year longitudinal study.
There was a more recent study of 12,000 teens that concluded there was a very small but statistically significant causality between increased social media use and depression from inequality one year to the next. As I wrote above, study results are mixed. And no causal epidemic yet proved. Study below:
Social Media Use and Depressive Symptoms During Early Adolescence
A Consensus Statement as linked above and Jonathan' Haidt’s post New Study Finds Most Experts Share Concerns About The Effects Of Smartphones And Social Media On Adolescent Mental Health.
Haidt’s sentence below in his post confused me. I thought the point of a consensus study was to publish the consensus of the 120 experts.
What we offer [that follows] is our own analysis of the data from Survey 1. We do not claim to speak for the other 118 listed authors of the Consensus Study.
From The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt; 2024.
I’m A Disabled Teenager And Social Media Is My Lifeline by Asaka Park, age 17, in The New York Times; June 2019
I don't understand why you unquestioningly accept the experiment in which children are raised with smartphones, but you think the experiment in which smartphones are withheld is unacceptable. Parents are supposed to provide food, shelter, care, socialization. They are not required to buy expensive gadgets for their children.
"Proving causation" is a very high bar. I think there is enough evidence of harm that a reasonable parent should be thinking about withholding smartphones or at least limiting usage, and that's actually what we're seeing around the country.
> What happens to the harmony of a household where parents are using their smartphones and their teens cannot?
I think it would be great if parents minimized their smartphone usage, especially around their children. An important part of parenting is modeling good behavior.
This article is a weak response to the work of Haidt (and Jean Twenge). Haidt has extensively responded to all of these arguments on his Substack and it would have been interesting to see the author actually grapple with these responses. But a few points for now:
- Twenge and Haidt base much of their data on surveys like "Monitoring the Future" and the "General Social Survey" that have been asking youth the same questions for decades. This is not about a rise in teens self-reporting as mentally ill or even an increase in third party diagnoses.
- Suicide rates have gone up significantly. Presumably that isn't driven in by increasing awareness and acceptance of mental illness; one would think that would be strong evidence of actual mental issues.
- Haidt doesn't only blame cell phones and social media. There is a much bigger story he is telling about the loss of local community and independent real world play. He fully acknowledges that these trends have been going on for decades but became supercharged over the last 15 years with the rise of cell phones and social media.