The Asphyxiated Generation

You'll be so Anxious when you see this Facebook post from 1949.

Eight months ago, I wrote a post called Screens, Kids, and Pablo Picasso, a collection of my observations about the negative effects of screens, from “scrolling while peeing” (gross) to the movie Children of Men (powerful) to restricting my kids’ iPad usage for a six-week trial (it went better than I thought it would go).

It became one of my most-discussed posts, as many people are rethinking their relationship with screens, both for themselves and their kids.

Whether in the comments, at school drop-off, or in PTA meetings, Jonathan Haidt’s best-selling book The Anxious Generation is at the center of this conversation.

If you haven’t read it, you should.

Like many parents, I’ve used “screen time” both as a reward and as a babysitter, relegating my kids’ attentions to disembodied, silent sessions on apps. We’ve (mostly) fixed this in 2024, and we’re rethinking everything to free our kids from the trappings of invasive, attention-sucking screens.

This week, my 14-year-old referred to endless scrolling of social media vertical video stories as “brain rot,” and I couldn’t be happier.

But it was almost too late. We were going with the flow. Doing what everyone else seemed to be doing.

Surely, I wouldn’t have done this if I knew then what I know now.

And it made me think about what previous generations might have thought at similar moments of discovery.

So I wrote this bit of satire and mocked it up for you….

Download the full version of this here.

Somewhere mixed in with the jokes and Historical Tweets-style history Easter Eggs, there are swirling feelings about my own parenting and what I need to do differently to curtail the invasive effects of screens on my life.

And perhaps some self-forgiveness for not getting it right earlier. Hope you find that, too.

If you like this, here are two other satire pieces I’ve recently published:

• Newsflash: Elon Musk Reveals Next Phase of the "MCU"

• Guest Post: Caitlin Clark Opts to Be Paid in Memorabilia

Thanks to

Norman T. Leonard

for helping me edit this one.

And thank YOU for reading. Would love to know what you think—

Further research, reading, and resources:

• Jonathan Haidt’s Substack publication “After Babel”

• His colleague

  Freya India
  has a great related article entitled “You Don't Need To Document Everything”

• Derek Thompson in The Atlantic: “The True Cost of the Churchgoing Bust”

• Haidt’s interview with Rainn Wilson for his Soul Boom podcast

• “I’ve done a 180 on Social Media” by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Thanks for reading!

Alec

---

Read as text:

JAMES MADISON MIDDLE SCHOOL PTA
(PRIVATE GROUP)

POST BY FRANCES WILSON:

October 4, 1949

I beg your pardon if this isn't the right place to write this (moderators, kindly remove, if so!), but I've JUST finished reading the new book The Asphyxiated Generation, and it's making me rethink everything about my children’s cigarette usage!!

I realize it’s the custom to give every teenager their own pack of cigarettes these days, but it sounds like smoking is becoming a real problem at school. Teachers say students are distracted in class: they're twitchier than the jitterbug and the smoke is so thick no one can see the chalkboards!

My son Tommy (8th grade) swears that he only smokes his cigarettes during passing periods and lunch, but we're not so sure. He gets so agitated every time we threaten to take them away!

Is anyone else experiencing this?

COMMENTS:

• William Carter:
  Same here! My 7th grader just locks herself in her room and smokes all night. It's really affecting her sleep! This wasn’t a problem when she got weekend smoke time for doing her chores.

• Margaret Miller:
  My son doesn’t have his own cigs, but his best friend does. I just found out that they were looking at a suggestive photo of Rita Hayworth’s shoulders that was on his friend’s pack. What’s next, her ankles!?

• Virginia Andeson:
  Can’t stand the way my son won't leave the house without his pack rolled up in his sleeve. It's like it's a part of him! The only way I can get him to stop smoking at supper is to promise him extra “pack time” if he finishes his green beans.

  • Joseph Brown:
    When I was his age, I rolled my own cigarettes, kept my head down, and answered the call from Uncle Sam.

  • Charles Thompson:
    Hear, hear! We had the Three Rs. Kids these days have the Three Cs: Coughing, Complaining, and Coddling!

• Shirley Baker:
  Ever since my Jimmy got his own pack of Marlboros, he stopped showing interest in badminton. He was being considered for a scholarship, but now, who knows? He just keeps stacking his cigarettes like Lincoln Logs, over and over. My husband says he’s going to grow up to be a hobo or, worse, a crooner!

• Robert Davis:
  I want my kids to be ready for adulthood, and, like it or not, that requires smoking. How else will they learn? I don’t trust an adult who doesn’t smoke.

• Katherine DeWitt:
  I was at a restaurant yesterday for supper and the parents at the table next to us gave their YOUNG KIDS cigars. The whole family was just sitting there, puffing away. You could tell those cigars belonged to the kids, too. They had those colorful handles. All that smoke time isn’t good for social development. I went over to say something to the mother, but she told me to mind my own business. I was just trying to help!

  • Aaron Moore:
    Maybe stay out of someone else’s war? #appeasement

  • Ed Fischer:
    That whole dinner will live in infamy

  • Vincent Tucker:
    Pearls, clutched!
    [Photo of clutching pearls]

  • Ed Fischer:
    What? Too soon?

• Betty Drake:
  My cousin Martha sent her daughter to school with a round tin of Skoal tied to her wrist. That seems to be less distracting than a full pack.

• Dot Miller:
  Frances, we shouldn't push the school district to mandate ANY beliefs on ALL students. I do support a parent's ability to mandate cigarette limitations for their own children, of course, as I support many other individual rights. Except for school integration. I don’t support that.

• Franklin Lloyd:
  You know who ALSO banned smoking from schools, post offices, buses, and military bases? That's right, the NAZI’S. Aren't we trying to be *just a little bit better* than them?

  • Carl Sampson:
    Ich bin wegen der Kommentare hier…
    [popcorn eating photo]

  • Frank Black:
    I'm not sure I would conflate German anti-smoking regulations and Nazi-led genocide.

  • Patrick Johnson:
    What do you know about it?

  • Frank Black:
    I stormed the beach at Normandy, asshole.

• Sarah Wright:
  Can't think too much about this… too busy planning our big family vacation to South Korea next year!! #KimchiSummer

Thanks for reading to the end. You’re the winner!