dailynewsnblog
From Anonymous:
Hello Professor Cowen,
I hope all is well with you and that you have navigated the recent weather alright.
I have a thought that I wanted to run by you that related to phones and teen anxiety.
You have cited a variety of studies that say that phones and social media do not cause anxiety. As you may recall, I have taught junior high and high school for almost 30 years. I did see a big spike in anxiety for my students, especially females, around the years 2010-2017/18ish. I used to think “phones,” but now I’m not sure. The anxiety spike has declined. My last ‘anxious’ class of seniors are now seniors in college. Students today are on the phones as much as those in the past.
Here is my theory: Students started to feel more anxious around 2010 because they could sense the coming seismic cultural and political shifts coming, of which phones were a harbinger or carrier. They were mostly not conscious of this, and couldn’t express it, but they were trying to cope.
Now, they have coped. My current seniors have unusual political ideas but are mostly optimistic. I contrast them to a centrist friend of mine who does some DC work and constantly thinks the sky is falling.
Now, adults are more anxious, not students. Adults are starting to see these seismic shifts and they are trying to cope. Perhaps they are projecting their own anxiety onto their kids, and are behind the times with the cause. Phones may have helped drive anxiety 10 years ago, but maybe not anymore. Students have coped and adjusted to a new equilibrium.
It is also possible that phones serve as a good/useful “myth” (I mean this in a positive sense) for the shifts we are seeing and the anxiety many feel . We need something tangible to hold our thoughts on the shifts in culture, and we have chosen phones. Thus, the clash over phones today might be between those who think in mythic/symbolic ways, and those who think in more scientific ways. Both are right in their own perspective. The new cultural and political shifts over the last 10-15 years would naturally bring on anxiety. Phones are not the cause of the shift, but a good symbol of it.
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