In his best-selling book, The Anxious Generation, author Jonathan Haidt, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, discusses the social changes that have led to the surge in anxiety and depression among Gen Z: the introduction of smartphones and social media.
The book spawned the Anxious Generation Movement, a public health campaign “focused on policy, culture, and behavior change,” according to the book’s website. The team, led by Hite, has been tracking Congress on children’s phone use and producing documents that provide ideas for policy development and more.
Gen Z is not the only generation affected by smartphones and social media. “We all feel it,” says Alexa Arnold, who serves as both the movement’s managing director and Hite’s chief of staff.
If you feel like your mental health has taken a hit over the past few years, here are Arnold’s tips for reducing anxiety.
Please put your cell phone away
The first step is to de-center your phone in your life, says Arnold.
To do that, she says, you can turn off notifications and disable the ability to send texts to your computer. Another option is to “leave your phone in another room for hours at a time,” she added.
“I think the longer we have breaks and the longer we can do deep work and focus, the better our brains will be,” she says.
Arnold suggests starting to think about your cell phone usage a little at a time. For example, if you love checking the news, instead of checking your news app repeatedly throughout the day, set aside 20 minutes a day to check the news.
please do something scary
Arnold’s second tip for reducing anxiety: Do something that scares or challenges you.
According to Arnold, challenges at work can help you grow, especially when they’re mentally or physically taxing. This principle also applies when you do something scary in a social situation, such as starting small talk with a stranger. And the impact is immeasurable, she added.
No matter where you are in life, says Arnold, “tackling difficult things increases your confidence and ability, increases your creativity and self-confidence.” Doing difficult things can also help reduce anxiety.
“In almost every room we walk into, we get the question, ‘Who is the anxious generation?’” Arnold says.
“And the truth is, I think it’s all of us.”
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