Teacher Book Club: The Anxious Generation vs. If Books Could Kill

I considered reading Jonathan Haidt’s book THE CODDLING OF AMERICAN MIND because the main premise sounded like something I overall agreed with, but reviews deterred me. THE ANXIOUS GENERATION I could not resist. I understand that Haidt has done some questionable things, such as appearing on Joe Rogan's show to talk about his books, which was somewhat unsettling to hear when I listened to the podcast "If Books Could Kill," which did an episode all about THE ANXIOUS GENERATION. I was looking forward to hearing a critique of the book because I think I've spent a lot of my nonfiction-reading life simply reading things that affirm what I already believe, and I wanted to be challenged intellectually and hear another side. I’m also very passionate about this issue and I talk about it a lot, and I don’t want to be ignorant to any contrasting evidence. So I was ready for a serious discussion of the other side, but I was disappointed with what I heard. For context, I was only about 150 pages into THE ANXIOUS GENERATION when I listened to the podcast, but have since read more.

The “If Books Could Kill” podcast hosts expressed a lot of criticism of Haidt’s research, but I didn’t actually hear any good evidence that there was anything amiss in the book. Their refrain about Haidt is that he is a “reactionary centrist,” and eventually I had to Google what it means to call someone reactionary. I certainly wouldn’t expect to agree much with a person who is described as such, but the political sides are not monoliths. It sounded to me as if, because they don’t share political labels with him, they can’t allow him to be right. It is so odd how critical they are of someone whose claims they repeatedly admit they “actually agree” with. Yet, they’re so uncomfortable sharing one opinion with this man. It’s giving divisive and inauthentic, but okay.

They specifically critique his research process, saying he didn’t collaborate with any new researchers, only people he had worked with before. That seems difficult to fact check and I don’t really care whether it’s true or not. They also say that the studies he cites don’t actually show what he claims they do, but all the “debunking” they do still aligns with Haidt’s claims. Haidt says that looking at “screen time” tells us nothing, but looking at time spent on social media does show significant trends. The podcasters make it out like Haidt doesn’t recognize that, and after I read about 50 more pages of the book I saw that he very clearly does. He states multiple times the issues with the current research and the way it’s interpreted. At one point the podcasters say, “The whole idea of combing through data sets and looking for associations is bullshit.” I sent this statment to my husband who has a Masters in data analytics, and he said it’s complicated but it is definitely not bullshit.

I am not a data analyst, but their take seemed “reductive” to me, which is their second favorite phrase after “reactionary centrist.” I simply don’t understand why they work so hard to make this book out as bad research and discourse when they don’t seem to actually disagree with him at all. It just seems to be politically uncool so agree with Haidt, which I find to be a boring position. I’m super open to being told I’m wrong about this, but this is what I got out of it and how it came across to me. I still haven’t finished the book (currently 58% finished according to Goodreads), so I’m continuing to stay skeptical as I read. But so far everything Haidt says is adding up to me. Even when I have noticed parts where I think, “But couldn’t that be explained by something else?” Haidt turns around and shows exactly how it can’t. I know I come in with bias, but that’s exactly why I was hoping for a solid critique. I suppose I’ll keep looking. Or perhaps, send me a recommendation!