Book Review: The Anxious Generation

Originally published on Substack on October 08, 2025.

I'm currently reading The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, a deep dive into the pandemic like world of childhood and young adult mental health challenges which is rapidly changing schools and workplaces.

To put my cards on the table I've probably come a full circle in my views on the impacts of GenAI on childhood from being an almost complete advocate (See below from 2024) to being increasingly concerned.Probably in consequence of spending so much time with our wonderful little boy and seeing how he interacts with technology.

Between the lines Harrys Newsletter No.37 It’s been over a year since I’ve written much of anything let alone this Newsletter, lets just say life got in the way… Read more 2 years ago · 1 like · Harry Hunter

The key posit of the book is that there was a major change in childhood in the mid-2010s as internet connected smartphones were adopted wholesale by teenagers (or younger…) along with Social media apps such as Instagram and TikTok which have through the innate addictiveness of the instant gratification a touch screen gives and specific product design choices of App developers have starved young people of the real world social experiences they need to build resilience, confidence and perseverance to overcome the challenges that life throws at you.

The book makes a good argument that these technologies have 're-wired’ us. I can feel the pull myself reading in the evening with my phone by my side to ‘just check’ something, to receive my dopamine hit from swiping up and opening my email. If such affects me, a cynical 37yo, how do kids have a chance? A luddite I am not, and I can quote the newspaper headlines of the past 150 years worried about the impact of the introduction of the radio, TV and Internet on the next generation but the Smartphone/Social Media revolution, now being turbocharged by AI does feel different.

I won't re-hash the argument of the book here, go read it yourself! But, as a parent I've come around fully to supporting efforts to restrict phone use in schools and increasing platform level governance of TikTok, Instagram and similar to ensure parents have some form of control of what their children have access to. From a tech perspective, I know this is bloomin hard…… VPNs are a few clicks away for national level regulation and kids are creative when they want to achieve something, but the alternative is a society increasingly unable to integrate and interoperate.

This shouldn't however ignore all the potential benefits of integrating GenAI into childhood experiences. I stand by past views that well designed GenAI enabled agents such as a supercharged Alexa could be massively helpful in supporting children’s education in practical ways. In Iain Banks Culture series where AI's had become effectively sentient, they're treated as if they were another human working in full trusted partnership and I can see a world where such technologies become a major support to parents in raising their children. Imagine having an 'Household AI’ agent on your side ensuring the kids can't play any computer games until their homework was done!

The reality is kids needs a broad mix of activities and experiences; technologically enabled ones have their place (I'm certainly looking forward to playing MarioKart with our Son!) but they cannot be allowed to ‘crowd out’ real world experiences. Humans have learnt through physical play and interaction from our first days, we must not forget this.