We’re Not The Anxious Generation — We’re the Ignored Generation

In his book, The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt argues that smartphones have “rewired” childhood and broken a generation. He calls us the least flourishing in modern history and urges a retreat to something closer to 1980s parenting, complete with delayed phone access and outdoor play.

The coverage has been loud and serious. The New York Times reviewed it with gravity. Haidt’s interview with Ezra Klein carried the weight of a moral emergency. And yet, for all the talk of children and teens, there’s a curious absence: our voices.

So allow me, a member of Gen Z, to respond.

I don’t deny that technology can hurt. We’ve all felt it — the doomscrolling, the group chat drama, the paralysis of too many notifications. But while Haidt paints this era as one of collective breakdown, he oversimplifies the truth. His view — shaped by academic distance and generational remove — often lacks the nuance that comes from living through this reality, not just observing it. A generation raised in a pandemic, amidst climate anxiety, geopolitical violence, and a never-ending college admissions arms race, isn’t just “anxious” because of TikTok. Sometimes, the world is just objectively overwhelming — phones or not. 

Moreover, we’re not passive victims of our screens. We’re also artists, organizers, coders, friends. We’ve used social media to start businesses, build movements, share poetry, and find community when our towns, schools, or even homes didn’t provide one. For queer teens, neurodivergent youth, or anyone who grew up “different,” the internet wasn’t a trap — it was a lifeline.

Haidt repeatedly cites correlations between screen time and mental health struggles. But correlation is not causation. The same era that saw rising anxiety also saw economic precarity, school shootings, and the erosion of trust in institutions. Could it be that our phones became mirrors of a broken adult world, not the cause of its fractures? 

The solutions he proposes — bans on smartphones in schools, heavy parental control software, restricting access until age 16 — reflect an approach rooted more in control than in preparation. But what happens when a 13-year-old gets on a public bus with an internet-connected device, or goes to a friend’s house where filters don’t exist? You can’t firewall the world.

And if you try, it might backfire. Studies suggest that teens with the most authoritarian parents often end up the least prepared to self-regulate. One study from the University of New Hampshire even found that teens with very strict parents are more likely to lie, sneak around, and exhibit “reactive rebellion” — not less. 

Control doesn’t teach resilience. Conversation does. 

But that’s the problem. We’re not being talked with. We’re being talked about. Adults — whether lawmakers, tech CEOs, or bestselling authors — rarely consult teens when deciding what’s best for us. We’re interviewed in snippets, polled in surveys, used to illustrate problems in PowerPoint decks. We’re not treated like stakeholders in our own futures.

I’m not saying everything is fine. It isn’t. We do need a serious, ongoing conversation about tech ethics, design incentives, digital well-being, and youth rights. But fearmongering isn’t reform — it’s distraction. And nostalgic fantasies about childhoods “before the smartphone” won’t solve the crisis of meaning that many young people feel.

The real issue isn’t just that we’re anxious. It’s that we’re unheard.

We are the generation that watched the adults fumble a pandemic response, ignore mass shootings, and gut climate policies. We were born into surveillance capitalism and mental health deserts. We didn’t choose this world — but we are trying to make sense of it.

So no, we’re not the anxious generation.

We’re the ignored generation.

And it’s time you listened.