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The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness

Book by Jonathan Haidt · 4 quotes · Evolutionary Psychology, Community, Gen Z

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The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness Quotes

“Girls in virtual networks are subjected to hundreds of times more social comparison than girls had experienced for all of human evolution. They are exposed to more cruelty and bullying because social media platforms incentivize and facilitate relational aggression. Their openness and willingness to share emotions with other girls espouses them to depression and other disorders. The twisted incentive structures of social media reward the most extreme presentations of symptoms.”

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Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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“Socially prescribed perfectionism is closely related to anxiety; people who suffer from anxiety are more prone to it. Being a perfectionist also increases your anxiety because you fear the shame of public failure from everything you do. And, as you’d expect by this point in the story, socially prescribed perfectionism began rising, across the Anglosphere nations, in the early 2010s.”

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Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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“Here is Epictetus, in the first century CE, lamenting the human tendency to let others control our emotions: If your body was turned over to just anyone, you would doubtless take exception. Why aren't you ashamed that you have made your mind vulnerable to anyone who happens to criticize you, so that it automatically becomes confused and upset? Anyone who checks their "mentions" on social media, or has ever been thrown for a loop by what somebody posted about them, will understand Epictetus's concern.”

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Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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“Children growing up after the Great Rewiring skip through multiple networks whose nodes are a mix of known and unknown people, some using aliases and avatars, many of whom will have vanished by next year, or perhaps by tomorrow. Life in these networks is often a daily tornado of memes, fads, and ephemeral micro-dramas, played out among a rotating cast of millions of bit players. They have no roots to anchor them or nourish them; they have no clear set of norms to constrain them and guide them on the path to adulthood.”

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Book:The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
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