NYU Professor Says Fragile Gen Z Causing ‘National Crisis’

Generation Z is putting America’s future in peril thanks to their physical and mental fragility, a renowned professor is warning.

The uselessness of today’s teens and young adults is nothing short of a “national crisis,” says Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Haidt is also the author of many books, including “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.”

“We have a whole generation that’s doing terribly,” Haidt Submitted The Wall Street Journal interviewed recently

Gen Z is usually defined as Americans born between 1997 and 2012 who are now in their teens or early 20s. They are the first generation to experience the full benefits of social media and the internet. Some surveys show that they are the most successful generation. Report They struggle with mental health more than any generation, even the previous Notoriously anxious Some millennials are in their 40s.

It has. “never been a generation this depressed, anxious and fragile,” Haidt remarked. “When you look at Americans born after 1995, what you find is that they have extraordinarily high rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide and fragility.”

Because today’s youth spend so much time online, they have been deprived of practicing the “skills of adulthood in a low-stakes environment” Haidt said that children often play with their siblings. They spend less time together than they do with their parents and are more likely to be friends. Driving cars You will see it less often.

Haidt describes girls as particularly vulnerable because they often find themselves drawn to more isolationist activities, such as posting and scrolling on Instagram. “compare and despair,” Haidt states that boys participate in group activities such as video games, but they are not the only ones.

Indeed, in 2012, around the time Instagram exploded among younger users, depression rates spiked for Gen Z teen girls, Haidt’s research shows. Another study Survey It was found that 42% of Gen Z had been diagnosed with a mental illness.

Many Gen Z have been left insecure by their mental fragility. “defend mode” Instead of “discover mode,” Haidt said that the same principle applies to colleges.

“Here they are in the safest, most welcoming, most inclusive, most antiracist places on the planet, but many of them were acting like they were entering some sort of dystopian, threatening, immoral world,” He said.

The trend is that Gen Z’s oldest members are less risk-averse and more innovative than their younger counterparts. “undermine American capitalism,” Haidt warns.

According to Pentagon data, Gen Z youth may be even physically weaker than their elders.

“The ‘Nintendo Generation’ soldier skeleton is not toughened by activity prior to arrival, so some of them break more easily,” said Pentagon and Army Major Jon-Marc Thibodeau, who is chief of the medical readiness service line at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.

“We see injuries ranging from acute fractures and falls, to tears in the ACL, to muscle strains and stress fractures, with the overwhelming majority of injuries related to overuse,” said Captain Lydia Blondin, the assistant chief of physical therapy at Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital.

Haidt says that social media accounts are responsible for a large portion of the damage done to Gen Z. He says damage actually comes from social media. “so vastly exceeds the damage from Covid that we’re going to have to act.”