Kerby Anderson

Yesterday I talked about the research by Jonathan Haidt and others on young girls and ended with his comment that his explanation for girls did not seem to apply to boys. His article attached to his commentary is a preview of his forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation. Rates of mental problems rose significantly around 2013, and the impact of social media on girls is the logical explanation.

But we didn’t see the same rapid increase for boys. Rates of anxiety and depression were much higher for girls than boys. But the rate for suicide is much higher for boys than girls. He concluded that he was focused on the wrong variables.

He explains, “The male crisis didn’t begin on the day that boys traded their flip phones for smartphones packed with social media apps. Boys started to become more pessimistic around four decades ago, although the trend has accelerated in the years since everyone got a smartphone.”

Boys are more attracted to things, machines, and complex systems. They got involved in the early phases of technological entertainment that included computers and video games. These pulled them away from real-world pursuits and into the virtual world.

They have withdrawn from the real world “where they could develop the skills needed to become competent, successful, and loving men.” Instead, they have been “lured into an ever more appealing virtual world in which desires for adventure and for sex can be satisfied, at least superficially, without doing anything that would prepare them for later success in work, love, and marriage.”

These last two days, I have been talking about the significant mental health problems of this young generation. Pastors and Christian leaders need to speak to this issue and warn parents about these dangers.