The Real Reason Young People Are Anxious

The Wall Street Journal Feb. 7, 2025

Thomas Cole, “The Voyage of Life: Youth,” 1842. Modern childhood in America in a nutshell.

In “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt identify a culture of “safetyism” that made young people less resilient and more anxiety-prone. Mr. Haidt’s latest book, “The Anxious Generation,” claims that the widespread use of technology and social media is “rewriting” childhood, causing a mental-health crisis.

These authors correctly note that we have a cultural problem exacerbated by the overuse of technology, but I believe that there is much more to it. Technology addiction and parental coddling aren’t the causes of mental-health problems in young people, but rather symptoms.

The real problem is the romantic corruption of imagination. Imagination is far more powerful than logic or reason. It colors our entire view of life and life’s possibilities. A well-formed imagination—one properly adjusted to reality—can adapt to life’s vicissitudes and see life steady and see it whole.

A malformed imagination is romantic. It is unbalanced and lacks proportion. It is oriented by an unrealistic, even utopian, vision of progress and a world altogether changed through human effort. This dreamy vision of a New Earth is made possible by the belief that “man is a naturally good being,” as the archromantic Jean-Jacques Rousseau declared in the 18th century. We must clear away the traditional religious and social norms hindering prosperity and instead heed the “cry of nature,” Rousseau argued.

Although Rousseau abandoned his own five children in Paris’s foundling homes, he fathered generations of romantics . . . continue reading at the Wall Street Journal. If paid subscribers hit a paywall, message me for a PDF.