CITIZENS NEWS

The great unplug: Reclaiming our minds from the digital onslaught

By avagrace // 2025-10-27

• Starting in the early 2010s, there has been a sharp, sustained increase in teenage depression, anxiety and self-harm, which experts link to the mass adoption of smartphones and the shift to a "phone-based childhood."
• These devices harm mental well-being by displacing crucial, real-world activities like in-person socializing and unstructured play. For adolescents, this is compounded by the constant social comparison and fractured attention fostered by social media.
• A core recommendation is to take deliberate, extended breaks from phones. Practical steps include turning off non-essential notifications, physically placing the phone in another room and "batching" phone use into specific time blocks.
• Beyond individual action, the movement advocates for key norms to protect children, including no smartphones before high school, no social media before age 16 and implementing phone-free schools.
• Alongside using phones less, it is vital to engage in difficult or scary real-world activities. Overcoming these manageable obstacles builds confidence and self-efficacy, serving as a direct antidote to anxiety.

A growing chorus of experts and a burgeoning public movement are issuing a starkly simple prescription for rising anxiety: Put the phone down. Spearheaded by social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt, this push for digital moderation is not merely a lifestyle suggestion but a response to what he identifies as a profound rewiring of childhood and a primary driver of a mental health crisis gripping younger generations. The movement, born from Haidt's bestselling book "The Anxious Generation," argues that the key to better mental well-being lies in taking deliberate and extended breaks from the devices that have come to dominate modern life. The alarming data form the bedrock of this argument. Starting in the early 2010s, rates of teenage mental illness began a sharp and sustained climb. Diagnoses of depression and anxiety among U.S. college students more than doubled between 2010 and 2018. Even more disturbingly, emergency room visits for self-harm saw catastrophic increases, rising by 188 percent among teenage girls and 48 percent among boys in the decade leading to 2020. Haidt and like-minded researchers point to the mass adoption of smartphones and social media as the catalyst for this "Great Rewiring of Childhood," a shift from a play-based to a phone-based existence. The mechanism by which devices impact mental health is multifaceted. Smartphones function as "experience blockers," displacing enriching activities like in-person socialization, unstructured play and hands-on hobbies. They pull users away from their immediate surroundings, creating a state of being "forever elsewhere." For adolescents, a period of intense social and emotional development, the effects are particularly potent. Social media platforms encourage constant social comparison and can be unforgivingly cruel, quantifying social standing through likes and followers. The compulsive need to check notifications and refresh feeds fractures attention, training the brain for distraction rather than deep focus.

Practical steps for a digital detox

The solution, according to advocates like Alexa Arnold of the Anxious Generation Movement, begins with consciously decentering the phone from daily life. This involves practical steps such as turning off non-essential notifications and physically placing the phone in another room for hours at a time to facilitate periods of uninterrupted, deep work. Arnold suggests "batching" phone use, for instance, allocating a specific 20-minute block to catch up on news rather than checking apps repeatedly throughout the day. The core principle is that the longer the breaks from the device, the better the brain can recover its natural capacity for concentration and calm. Alongside digital moderation, the movement emphasizes the importance of challenging oneself in the real world. Doing things that are scary or difficult, whether in a professional setting or a social one, like striking up a conversation with a stranger, builds confidence and capability. This practice of undertaking hard things serves as an antidote to anxiety, fostering a sense of self-efficacy that screen-based validation cannot provide. It is a return to the principle that resilience is built through overcoming manageable obstacles, a process that has been diminished in an age of digital escapism and overprotective parenting.

The looming threat of artificial intelligence

Just as the battle against the negative impacts of social media gains momentum, a new technological frontier poses an even greater challenge: artificial intelligence (AI). Haidt warns that AI has the potential to multiply the pathways of harm established by social media, creating content that is "so much more addictive." Early consequences are already emerging, from AI "suicide coaches" to the use of deepfake technology for harassment and blackmail. The fight, he argues, must now expand to prevent the next generation from being lost to what he calls "alien intelligences." "Technology's role is to serve human needs, not dictate them. The ideal relationship is one where technology is intentionally aligned with and enhances human well-being," said BrightU.AI's Enoch. "This requires designing and using technology as a tool that supports your goals, values and social connections." Ultimately, the message of the Anxious Generation movement is one of cautious optimism. It contends that the current mental health crisis is not an inevitable byproduct of modern life, but a direct consequence of specific technological choices. Watch Ben Pring explaining technology and its impact on people's lives, alongside how to unplug from it, in this episode of "Finding Genius Podcast." This video is from the Finding Genius Podcast channel on Brighteon.com. Sources include:  CNBC.com TheGuardian.com USAToday.com BrightU.ai Brighteon.com

glitch mental health Mental illness AI prevention Social media children's health mind remedies digital detox goodhealth phone-based childhood digital dangers hyper-connectivity digital moderation