The Anxious Generation

The Anxious Generation is, I hope, the book that will turn the tide. When I finally got my hands on it, many months after placing a reservation at my library (an encouraging sign) - I devoured it faster than I remember getting through any non-fiction book, ever.

Already a huge fan of Jonathan Haidt via recent guest appearances on webinars and blogs for organisations like SmartPhone Free Childhood, I was familiar with much of his research and some of the staggering, and simply tragic statistics that he cites.

The book can be summed up in one simple observation: We have overprotected our children in the physical world, and under-protected them in the digital world. In doing so, we have exposed them to a wide variety of harms culminating in depression and anxiety. We have also left them under-prepared and under-confident to meet the world of adulthood, lacking the basic life skills of social interaction that humans have come to require and expect in every previous generation.

Whilst reading Daniel Coyle's The Talent Code, I couldn't stop thinking about what Haidt refers to as the "Five Foundational Harms" in The Anxious Generation. One of these harms is Opportunity Cost - in short, Haidt asks what children are NOT doing, whilst they're spending time on their smartphones and other digital devices. Sleep Deprivation is perhaps the most obvious of the five to have particular relevance to young athletes, but also worth considering is Attention Fragmentation - an inability to stay on task.

If the backbone of talent really is Deep Practice (as Coyle demonstrates in The Talent Code) which in turn requires persistence and patience, then doesn't it stand to reason that the young athletes who stay off smartphones will have have a stronger chance of developing that talent? The instant dopamine hits that smartphones provide are the very opposite of the results and rewards that young people will see ONLY when they apply themselves to practice, and develop the resilience and tenacity required of a top-level athlete.

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