4
The Anxious Generation
Haidt being right all the time...
I'll get back to u w a longer post about this 2024 text from Jonathan Haidt, however...
- to capture my concerns about a generation of young minds, and then scuttle them on a seemingly trivial exploration of playgrounds as believable replacements for phones... hmmm.
- device addiction adultifies children, and solutions will have to meet kids within this pseudo-adult environment...a new wave playground might work if you introduce it before devices take root in their lives, but all of that seems like ice-skating uphill if the goal is to attract device-addicted kids to an unplugged lifestyle. There is an inextinguishable demand in the lives of young people to have what only the apps can currently provide.
- The only escape hatch I see - and one which I do have a fair amount of faith in given my observation of the phenomenon in the music world - is the possibility a generation will suddenly deem the apps to be "uncool". Luddite clubs suggest this is possible, but scaling this up from a clique of disconnected high schoolers to an entire generation of healthily analog adolescents seems improbable... for now.