Shatter the Screens to Repair Gen Z's Fractured Wellbeing
“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master”
In April 2022, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt wrote a provocative essay for The Atlantic entitled “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been So Uniquely Stupid.” In the piece, Haidt writes “Something went terribly wrong, very suddenly. We are disoriented, unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth. We are cut off from one another and from the past.” Haidt goes on to assign the responsibility for this disorientation to the rise and accessibility of smartphones and social media.
It’s fair to say that this “shattering” (as Haidt referred to it in a recent Trinity Forum Online Conversation) has reached nearly every area of life. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a 30% increase in suicides in the United States from 2000 to 2016, with rates increasing in all age groups.”
Dr. Jean Twenge–who, along with Jonathan Haidt-- has written extensively about the mental health challenges facing Generation Z, defines this group as those born between 1995 and 2012. Gen Z, or “iGen” is the first generation in human history to grow up as digital natives, with access to computers at home and in their pockets. Dr. Twenge was among the first to ask “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” She wrote, “The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health.”
From every quarter, concerns about the mental wellbeing of Gen Z and the population at large are being raised. For example, Haidt writes extensively about the ways that members of Gen Z are engaging in cognitive distortions–and how adults have helped strengthen three “Great Untruths”: what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker, always trust your feelings, and life is a battle between good people and bad people. These Great Untruths have been reinforced through social media–and again, through adults in their lives–and have contributed to a fracturing for Gen Z, which has been rippling out from the university, touching families, places of worship, media organizations, workplaces, and of course, politics.
We also see this fracturing in the way adults embrace baseless conspiracy theories, join online mobs to cancel dissenting opinions, engage in ad hominem attacks, and double-down on heightened rhetoric about the cultural issue du jour. Others have lost their lives, livelihood and reputations in the process. No one is immune from the toxicity of becoming a perpetrator or the wounding of being a victim, and many people are afraid to speak out for fear of the mob coming for them too. The COVID-19 pandemic, as with other historical pandemics, upended daily life and kept many isolated, fearful, and angry. People became much more susceptible to the shattering effects of the Great Untruths and the ways in which social media magnifies them.
Beyond smartphones and social media, the church may also have played a role in this disintegration. More and more people are isolated from community and subsequently dying “deaths of despair.” Civil discourse has deteriorated and people of faith are advocating for civil engagement that is more combative and less pluralistic.
Image from the CCCU
Although the fracturing of wellbeing affects us all it is Gen Z that has been hit the hardest. Prior to the pandemic, one-in-three youth aged 13-25 shared with Springtide that they “felt completely alone much of the time.” In their Belonging Guide, Springtide also reported that “nearly 40% [of 13-25 year-olds] have no one to talk to and feel left out.” This is the irony: the most technologically connected generation in human history is experiencing these levels of isolation and alienation.
Gen Z was already contending with the addictive lure of smartphones and social media and the corresponding decline of in-person interaction when the COVID-19 pandemic made nearly every human interaction virtual. In addition to pushing all socialization virtual, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the normal maturation process for millions of youth. According to Springtide Research Institute’s report, 3 Ways to Help Gen Z Flourish,
“We can begin to imagine that for young people, these years of their lives are not opportunities and events delayed, like an adult returning to a well-known office at a steady job. In many instances, young people are missing entire developmental markers and moments, formative and singular events that in many cases cannot be easily made up for or replaced. … In essence, the pandemic has not been a speed bump in their life. It has been a sudden and dramatic left turn.” (pp 3)
What is particularly vexing for those concerned about the mental health of Gen Z is that the remedy seems out of reach to support. Research shows that some of the top contributors to wellbeing include healthy connectivity to community and religious/spiritual practices. According to David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and podcaster, “[a]ttending services at least weekly or meditating regularly reduces feelings of depression and increases feelings of life satisfaction and purpose, even among adolescents (emphasis added). The health benefits are greater for those who attend services once a week or more than for those who only attend intermittently.” Steno also notes later on in his piece for the Wall Street Journal that engaging in prayer and contemplation can be beneficial for both physical and mental health. He writes, “[t]hey alter thought processes, imbuing situations that might seem hopeless with a sense of optimism, which is also linked to improved health.”
Springtide’s Belonging Guide also indicates that “connecting young people to even just one additional trusted adult can reduce their feelings of loneliness, isolation, and stress.” The research goes on to say that it would be a “game-changing prospect” if an adolescent were to have five or more trusted adults in their life. Inviting young people into corporate worship would be one way to form those vital connections.
In converse, the driving contributors to mental unhealth are all screen-related.
If the road to mental health for Gen Z is, therefore, less screen time, more family and friend time, and “getting religion,” how do we support this?
If you are a parent of adolescents, one concrete way to do this is to wait until 8th grade to give your kids phones, and even then with limited or no connectivity to social media. You can also join Jonathan Haidt’s movement to advocate that your kids’ schools become phone-free, either by installing phone lockers or using lockable pouches.
Another concrete step is to ensure that families who are struggling with mental health issues are given the support at the workplace to deal with the needs of their children. Also, those parents–or other concerned adults–who attend a worshiping community can support ministry to youth and young adults, including ones in their own community and others that might serve regionally or nationally. The Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services even has a toolkit to help faith and community leaders address the mental health crisis among adolescents.
Even if you represent a secular funding institution, consider supporting faith-based youth mentoring initiatives in your communities, in order to help increase the number of trusted (and of course, properly vetted) adults aligned with their families’ faith values available to adolescents. And we can all take a moment (after you’re done with this blog post) to put down our phones, close our screens, and spend time with the people we love.