A psychologist with decades of research behind him is seeing trends like never before. I personally am now limiting my social media time on Reddit\/Facebook\/Twitter\/etc – and am also feeling much happier, balanced, and able to think more nuanced. I still continue to believe that too much social media and mindless web surfing actually hinders our ability to form meaningful bonds\/relationships and makes us less happy. Japan has a trend called the hikikomori and there is some evidence this trend is also partly due to the reasons cited by this psychologist.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been researching generational differences for 25 years, starting when I was a 22-year-old doctoral student in psychology. Typically, the characteristics that come to define a generation appear gradually, and along a continuum.\u00a0Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states. The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs, and many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear. In all my analyses of generational data\u2014some reaching back to the 1930s\u2014I had never seen anything like it.<\/p>\n
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Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It\u2019s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.<\/p>\n
Even when a seismic event\u2014a war, a technological leap, a free concert in the mud\u2014plays an outsize role in shaping a group of young people, no single factor ever defines a generation. Parenting styles continue to change, as do school curricula and culture, and these things matter. But the twin rise of the smartphone and social media has caused an earthquake of a magnitude we\u2019ve not seen in a very long time, if ever. There is compelling evidence that the devices we\u2019ve placed in young people\u2019s hands are having profound effects on their lives\u2014and making them seriously unhappy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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