Author: Kerby Anderson

Kerby Anderson
Raising children in any generation is difficult, but the most challenging generation may be “Generation Z” (born between 1997 and 2012). Jason Jimenez writes about Parenting Gen Z: Guiding Your Child through a Hostile Culture. As a fellow parent, he understands that many parents are dealing with uncertainty and doubt as they are trying to raise spiritually healthy kids. This is most apparent with this young generation, who are the most non-Christian generation in American history.
He was on my radio program to offer biblical truths that would be helpful to parents trying to navigate the challenging conversations that influence their children in a secular and polarized culture. In many ways, they differ from previous generations due to the culture in which they live and due to the digital devices in their lives.
He wants parents to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses as they raise this young generation. He also highlights three flawed parenting styles. These are: control parenting which results in a failure to prepare, paranoid parenting which results in a failure to release, and detached parenting which results in a failure to provide.
He also supplies strategies to help parents build a home of love, discipline, and respect. He includes helpful chapters about challenging conversations about sex, gender, depression, suicide, abortion, and racism.
His book provides a helpful balance between the academic (his degrees in apologetics) and the practical. He is not only a worldview expert but the father of four Gen Z children. This is the book I want to put in the hands of parents raising the next generation.

Kerby Anderson
If you do an online search of the term “cultural Marxism,” you will see a Wikipedia entry that dismisses it as a “conspiracy theory” that is supposedly trying to take over Western culture. Actually, it is the dominant form of Marxism in America and in much of the West today.
Dr. Paul Kengor was on the Point of View radio talk show with me to talk about his recent article about cultural Marxism. He explained that cultural Marxism began about a century ago in Germany because the proponents felt that orthodox Marxism was too limiting and too narrow. They wanted revolutionary changes in marriage, sexuality, and family.
They looked to the universities as a place where their ideas would be launched. They could organize the students, the artists, and the media to transform Western society. Instead of focusing on an economic war, they wanted to bring a cultural war.
One of the key figures in cultural Marxism was Antonio Gramsci, who taught that they should seize the “cultural means of production.” That would be the media and the universities. He believed that the social transformation would be able to “march through the institutions.”
One place where cultural Marxism is evident today is in what is called “critical theory.” Paul Kengor reminded us that Barack Obama’s alma mater, Occidental College, has a Department of Critical Theory and Social Justice. It promises to instruct students in the principles of “Marxism, psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School, deconstruction, critical race studies, queer theory, feminist theory, and postcolonial theory.”
If you have been near a college campus lately, this should all sound very familiar. This is not a “conspiracy theory” but an accurate picture of the march of cultural Marxism through the institutions.

Kerby Anderson
America is a divided country. Os Guinness in his book, Last Call for Liberty, argues that the American republic is suffering its gravest crisis since the Civil War. He believes that the root of this disagreement is two different definitions of freedom.
One view of freedom is embodied in “1776 and the American Revolution.” The other view arose in “1789 and the French Revolution.” The first can be found in the Declaration of Independence that owes its formulation to the Protestant Reformation and even earlier in the ideas found in the book of Exodus in the Bible. The second can be found in France’s “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” that ended in the Reign of Terror. To that we can add Marx’s “triumph of the proletariat” and the policies of Stalin and Mao Zedong.
His book asks ten questions that make up the chapters in the book. When he was in studio with me talking about his book, I mentioned that few Americans could answer the questions in the affirmative. He asks, “Do you know where your freedom comes from?” Even fewer could offer good answers to questions like, “How do you plan to sustain freedom?”
He also addresses the question, “How will you make the world safe for diversity?” Here we have two starkly different visions of public life. On the one side are proponents of what Richard John Neuhaus called a naked public square that would exclude religion and religious expressions from public life. Proponents of a sacred public square would give preference to one religion. He advocates for a civil public square where citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage public life on the basis of their faith.
This book provides wise counsel on how Christians can be at the forefront of bringing America back to a proper understanding of freedom.

Kerby Anderson
Although the concept of a free enterprise system developed primarily in Europe, it has become the most successful in the United States. Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, has a possible explanation.
The founders promoted a free market where Americans were able to truly live their liberty. Thomas Jefferson famously said this in his first inaugural address: “A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”
People from other countries began to realize how exceptional America’s culture of free enterprise was. French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville called Americans “the freest people in the world.” He was struck by the fact that Americans pursued their interests under the supervision of limited government and banded together in voluntary associations.
This is true to this day. According to Arthur Brooks, Europeans are half as likely as Americans to attribute success in their own life to their own efforts. He even suggests that some of this might even be genetic: it is part of the American DNA. We are a nation of immigrants. Immigrants tend to be entrepreneurs and willing to take risks for the possibility of prosperity.
Arthur Brooks contends that we live in a 70-30 nation. A Pew Research Center poll asked a broad range of Americans this question: “Generally, do you think people are better off in a free market economy?” Almost 70 percent of respondents agree that they are better off in a free market economy.
The good news is that 70 percent of Americans believe in free enterprise. The bad news is that the other 30 percent are in control of important arenas in our society such as the academy, media, and government. This will be our challenge for the years to come.

Kerby Anderson
The US Constitution reminds us that the responsibility for our government rests with “we the people.” In order for us to be effective, we need to know something about our government and our history. Citizens in countries ruled by dictators don’t need to know much since the major decisions are made for them. But we Americans should be educated and informed.
Unfortunately, we are not well educated and informed. A study done by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation discovered that only one in three (36%) Americans could actually pass the US citizenship test. And I might add that you only have to get 60 percent of the questions right in order to pass the test.
For example, a majority (57%) did not know how many justices serve on the Supreme Court. Nearly three-fourths (72%) could not accurately identify which states comprised the 13 colonies. And only a quarter (24%) even knew why the American colonists fought the British in the Revolutionary War.
Most disturbing was the fact that young people performed worst on the test. You might excuse an elderly person for forgetting some facts about government or history. But less than one in five (19%) under the age of 45 could pass this test.
In previous commentaries, I have proposed a solution that some states have considered. Require students to pass the citizenship test before they graduate from high school. Consider the fact that a naturalized citizen probably knows more about America’s history and structure of government than someone who was born in this country.
Young people in America cannot pass a citizenship test for one of two reasons: either they weren’t paying attention in class or they weren’t taught this material in the first place. Let’s require students to pass a citizenship test before graduation. We require it of people who want to be American citizens. Why not require it of students who are already citizens because they were born here?

Kerby Anderson
Boys are in crisis. That should be obvious, but Dr. Warren Farrell still has to spend his first six chapters documenting it. He was on my radio program to talk about the book, The Boy Crisis, which he wrote with Dr. John Gray.
First, there is the crisis of our sons’ mental health. For example, the increase in the suicide rate among white males led to as many white male deaths as were lost to AIDS. The rate of mass shootings has increased significantly, and they are done by boys. Our daughters live in the same homes and have the same access to guns, video games, and the media. They are not killing. Our sons are.
Second is the crisis of our sons’ economic health. They are entering an economy different from their grandparents that has moved from muscle to mental, or to put it another way, from muscle to microchip. The median annual earnings of boys have dropped significantly.
Third is the crisis of our sons’ education. Over the last fifty years, the percentage of college degrees received by gender completely reversed. Females rose from 39 percent to 61 percent. Males dropped from 61 percent to 39 percent.
Less educated boys are more likely to be unemployed. But this reversal in education also affects marriage. As our sons become less educated, our daughters increasingly desire partners who are more educated.
Finally, there is a crisis of fathering. Boys growing up with less involved or non-involved fathers are more likely to face more social problems. These include dropping out of school, drinking, doing drugs, becoming delinquent, and perhaps even ending up in prison.
Pastors and Christian leaders need to focus attention on this boy crisis. We have church programs and faith-based solutions that build strong marriages and instruct in biblical parenting. The first step is to realize we are facing a boy crisis.

Kerby Anderson
Students and others chanting in the streets to support Hamas often do not even understand what the slogans mean. Last month, I cited a survey done by a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who hired a survey team to poll 250 students.
He found that less than half (47%) of the students who chanted the slogan (From the River to the Sea) were able to name the river and the sea. Some of the alternative answers were the Nile and the Euphrates, the Caribbean, the Dead Sea, and the Atlantic. These students obviously need an education, which apparently isn’t being provided in the public schools.
You might criticize the survey since it was a small sample and only focused on current politics and geography. That is why I wanted to devote the rest of my commentary to the most extensive survey done in recent years about the Holocaust.
A few years ago, the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany conducted a survey in all 50 states to document what younger Americans (under age 40) knew about the Holocaust. They found that two-thirds (63%) did not know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. In fact, over half of them thought the death toll was fewer than 2 million.
They also found that half (48%) of the younger generation could not name a single one of the more than 40,000 concentration camps or ghettos established by the Nazi government. Even more shocking was the fact that a small percentage (10%) did not recall ever having heard the word “holocaust” before. And if that is not shocking enough, they also found a small percentage (11%) who believed that Jews caused the Holocaust!
The obvious implication of all of this is that we need to teach history and geography in the public schools, including the horrible facts about the Holocaust.

Kerby Anderson
I’m not inclined to talk about legislation in other countries, but it is worth looking at proposed new hate speech legislation in Ireland so we can avoid the same mistake in this country. Kristen Waggoner of Alliance Defending Freedom wrote about this last month in Newsweek.
The context is something I’ve talked about on radio. The stabbing of children and others in Dublin by an Algerian resident sparked protests. Instead of addressing the issue of immigration, the government focused on the actions of the protesters as an excuse to criminalize free speech.
What is so surprising is the fact that this “hate speech” bill provides no definition of hate. In previous commentaries, I’ve documented that the word “hate” is a very difficult word to define in the law. We have seen this in previous attempts in this country to implement hate crime legislation.
This bill goes much further according to Kristen Waggoner. “As drafted, the law would allow police near-blanket authority to search and possibly find materials that are ‘hateful,’ rifling through text messages, emails, and personal effects to find prosecutable content.” She adds that the thought of police “raiding homes to seize devices and banned literature invokes thoughts of the novel 1984 and the darker moments of the last century.”
One of the supporters of the bill is a member of the Green Party. She defended the proposed legislation by arguing: “We are restricting freedom, but we’re doing it for the common good.” Yes, we have heard that before from totalitarians. It reminded me of the famous quote by C.S. Lewis: “Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”
What is happening in Europe can come to America unless we work diligently to protect free speech.

Kerby Anderson
If you write or speak about controversial issues, it is likely you will be banned from social media. Big Tech employees accuse the offender of misinformation or disinformation, even when that may not be the case.
YouTube (owned by Alphabet/Google), Facebook and Instagram (both owned by Meta), Twitter (now called X), and other platforms have banned politicians, doctors, and scientists. This has given Big Tech the ability to censor speech and put them into a position of deciding what is true and what is false.
Carol Roth, in her new book, reminds us that these bans are often permanent, with no pathway to redemption. She contrasts that with people who break the law. After they have served their time in prison, they are released. But with social media, there rarely is a path to get back on a platform.
Some have been successful. Journalist Alex Berenson was critical of COVID responses and information. When he posted accurate information about vaccine clinical trials, he received an eleven-month “permanent ban”. It wasn’t permanent because he sued Twitter and finally received a statement from Twitter that acknowledged his tweets should not have led to his suspension.
Sometimes you are banned with no justification. Journalist Miles Cheong said he was permanently banned from PayPal without an explicit reason and told he could not withdraw the money in his account for months.
In the past, we didn’t allow the phone service to decide if you could make a phone call. Carol Roth points to the Communications Act of 1934 which guaranteed phone service for all potential customers. The legislation wasn’t necessary when other phone services were available, and it wasn’t a monopoly.
But isn’t Big Tech essentially a monopoly? That’s why Congress needs to address the issue of banning people from social media.

Kerby Anderson
As we enter this new year, we will be hearing more about the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The First Industrial Revolution occurred in the 18th century. The Second Industrial Revolution began in the 19th century with the development of oil, electricity, and steel. The Third Industrial Revolution has been the digital era of computers and the internet.
The World Economic Forum claims that the Fourth Industrial Revolution “represents a fundamental change in the way we live, work, and relate to one another. It is a new chapter in human development, enabled by extraordinary technology advances commensurate with those of the first, second, and third industrial revolutions.”
Glen Beck, in his book Dark Future, argues this revolution will change our world: “In the coming years, advancements in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, blockchain technologies, bioengineering, automation, the metaverse, and countless other areas will change the human race in unprecedented ways.”
This changing reality raises an important question, says Beck, “The question is not whether life is going to change; that unstoppable freight train has already left the station. The real question—the most important one of this century—is, Will the emerging technological revolution improve life and make mankind freer, or will it enslave, impoverish, or perhaps even destroy it?”
These social and technological changes are coming, and Christians need to be educated about these topics and apply biblical principles to analyze them. That is why over the last year I have been writing booklets on topics like the great reset, social media, digital surveillance, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering. We need to think biblically about these topics, especially during this election year.

Kerby Anderson
Fifteen years ago, I wrote a commentary about the realignment of America. Now that we have some new census figures, I thought it might be time to write another commentary about the migration from blue states to red states. The issue is more complicated than what I describe here, so you might want to get a free copy of my Point of View booklet on the realignment of America.
The general trend is easy to see. The US population grew by 1.6 million between July 2022 and July 2023. Southern states accounted for 1.4 million of the growth. The five states leading the population boom were: Texas (473,453), Florida (365,205), Georgia (116,077), South Carolina (90,600), and Tennessee (77,512).
Eight states saw population declines. The top three states are: New York (-101,984), California (-75,423) and Illinois (-32,826). Much of the decline was due to migration from blue states to red states.
The editors of the Wall Street Journal provide an explanation for the flight from certain states. They explain that these states have many things in common: “High taxes, burdensome business regulation, and inflated energy and housing prices.”
They also focus on the interesting example of Washington state. In the past, I have pointed to its increasing population because it had no state income tax. But Washington state has now started losing population perhaps due to enacting a 7 percent capital gains rate on high earners. Another reason could be the increasing crime problem in Seattle.
Blue states also face an electoral problem. If this migration trend continues, six progressive states would lose 12 House seats in the 2030 reapportionment. Those congressional seats would go to Florida, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Utah, and Idaho.
The realignment of America continues because of the economic choices made by governors and legislatures in each state.

Kerby Anderson
Yesterday I talked about some of the problems with the universities in America and focused on the economic issues. Today I would like to talk about ideology. Victor Davis Hanson answers the question: “How Were the Universities Lost?”
He begins by acknowledging that most Americans already sensed that universities were a hotbed of liberalism and intolerance. But after the Hamas attack on Israel in October, most Americans were shocked at the level of antisemitic hatred on college campuses. He has several explanations.
First, elite universities worked to reduce their “white” incoming student populations. He points to the abolition of the SAT requirement and no longer looking at the comparative ranking of high school grade averages. The net result was a dramatic decrease in the number of Jewish students at many elite universities.
Second, was the description of Jewish students as “white” and “privileged.” The academic and financial success of Jewish people made it easier to target them as oppressors even though they are a minority in America. Third, universities began to admit increasing numbers of foreign students, especially from oil-rich Middle East countries, who possess an anti-Jewish bias.
He concludes, “The net result is that there are now thousands of students from abroad, especially from the Middle East, far fewer Jewish students, and student bodies who demand radical changes in faculty standards and course work.”
He also argued that these schools may go the way of Disney and Bud Light. “At the present rate, a Stanford law degree, a Harvard political science major, or a Yale social science BA will soon scare off employers and the general public at large.”
That’s why I suggest that a college degree may not be worth as much as it was just a few decades ago.

Kerby Anderson
For the next two days, I want to talk about some of the problems with universities in America. Much of what I will be talking about today comes from “Harvard is Big Business at Its Worst” by Allysia Finley. She focuses on Harvard because of the testimony last month by Harvard President Claudine Gay, but her comments apply to most of the major universities.
The first issue is the fact that the IRS recognizes most private colleges as nonprofits, meaning they don’t pay taxes. This saves Ivy League schools like Harvard millions of dollars, which is why they have massive endowments. Couple that with the fact that Columbia is New York City’s largest private landowner, with more than 320 properties, valued at nearly $4 billion.
Second, these schools may have nonprofit status, but they operate like business corporations. For example, they charge exorbitant prices for their product with inelastic demand. Moreover, they “practice price discrimination by awarding financial aid to lower-income kids so the schools can market themselves as diverse and accessible.”
Third, these schools exploit low-cost labor by employing graduate students to teach classes for higher-paid faculty. As a graduate student at Yale, I taught undergraduate students just a few years younger than myself and wondered if they and their parents thought they were getting the best education money could buy.
Finally, Ivy League colleges differ from corporations in one way: “The schools don’t have shareholders who can force changes.” We are seeing the influence of big donors announcing they will withdraw their donations, but that is nothing like what you find in typical corporate management.
Perhaps you can now see why many universities are big business at its worst.

Kerby Anderson
Our federal debt has been soaring to dangerous levels. According to the US Debt Clock, we are about to pass $34 trillion in national debt. As I have mentioned in previous commentaries, the debt to GDP is reaching an all-time high.
Even though Congress passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act, there doesn’t seem to be any fiscal responsibility. Members of Congress will be passing another large supplemental bill for wars and border security. Soaring debt is due in large part to soaring spending and entitlement programs currently on autopilot.
Is there a solution? Chris Edwards proposes one solution: phase out federal subsidies for state and local activities such as K-12 education and welfare. If the federal government cuts subsidies, the states could make prudent decisions about programs. They could downsize some and decide to fund others with their resources.
If states were to fund their own programs, each state could design programs to match local needs without the current one-size-fits-all federal mandate. It would also cut out the costs of the programs that are costlier than necessary to pay federal government bureaucrats.
State budgets traditionally have been more efficient. Nearly all states (49) have balanced-budget requirements, and most (43) governors have line-item vetoes that allow them to strike wasteful spending from budgets.
Chris Edward explains that the federal government accounts for two-thirds of the nation’s government spending, while the state and local governments account for one-third. He says we should be like Switzerland, where just one-third of government spending is federal.
His commentary reminds us there are ways to reduce federal spending, but we need to elect people to Congress who are willing to do it.

Kerby Anderson
Who would have ever thought that classical education would be controversial? The fact that Professor Adam Carrington had to write that “classical education is not a threat” is another indication of how everything has become political.
He begins by asking the question: “Is education Republican or Democrat, conservative or progressive?” His answer is that in a rightly ordered system, it should be neither. It should instruct students about America’s history and ideals.
One of the reasons such education has come under attack is due to the simple fact that it is the learning approach in many private schools and charter schools, and in homeschooling.
Classical education also avoids the “chronological snobbery” so prevalent in many educational programs today.  What is new and fashionable is valued over what has stood the test of time and provides a moral foundation for society.
He argues that “wisdom can be found in many times, places, and persons. We see in the Greeks the birth of philosophy, wherein men such as Plato and Aristotle sought to understand universal truths by studying the human beings around them.” 
We see it in Christianity and the Christian influence in western culture. And we see it in America with a “political system dedicated to human liberty and equality, along with the brilliant institutional structures of federalism and separation of powers found in The Federalist Papers and the US Constitution.”
He is also quick to add that we need not have blind adoration of the past, often filled with evils and horrors. Instead, we should condemn these evil practices and learn from these mistakes of the past.
Classical education can inform our current debates and provide a moral foundation on which to rebuild a broken society.

Kerby Anderson
Let me begin by wishing you a Happy New Year. At the start of this New Year, I wanted to pass on some advice. In previous commentaries, I have talked about the value of using this time of year to change something in your life. There is nothing magical about using January 1 as a start date, but why not use it to improve yourself?
First, I would recommend you pick just one thing to change. If you try to change too many things at once, you are probably not going to succeed. And I would also recommend that you make it a specific, concrete goal that you write down. The more specific you are, the greater likelihood you will be successful.
Second, aim low. In previous New Year’s commentaries, I have quoted from Tristan Taylor who encourages people to “strive for mediocrity.” Don’t pick something that is too big to achieve. Start small. After all, you are where you are right now due to dozens of small changes or compromises you made in the past.
I realize that motivational speakers challenge us to strive for excellence. We should pick a goal that challenges us. But also pick a reasonable goal so we can see and enjoy some level of success. Short-term success can lead to greater success.
Third, expect difficulties. It seems like the moment you start a diet, people around you start inviting you to banquets and all-you-can-eat buffets. The day after you join a fitness club, your life gets busy, and you cannot find time to get to the gym. The moment you decide to do a daily quiet time, your boss asks you to come in earlier for work.
Fourth, accept failure. You might find that for every two steps forward you take one step back. Sometimes you even take two steps back. This is where dedication and perseverance come into play.
Finally, plan a reward. This gives you a goal to achieve and a reward for your dedication. This is the first day of the year, so go for it.

Kerby Anderson
Most Americans are already financially worse-off than they were before the pandemic. But here is an arresting statistic. JP Morgan estimates that 99 percent of all Americans will be financially worse-off by next year.
The majority of Americans have burned through their excess savings they accumulated during the Covid-19 pandemic. The last few percentages of Americans will have used them up by July 2024.
The bank’s top stock strategist points to the fact that most Americans are already losing ground financially. He predicts that “only the top 1% of consumers by income will be better off than before the pandemic.” He also points to the increasing number of credit card and auto loan delinquencies, as well as Chapter 11 filings.
It appears that excess savings peaked in August 2021 at $2.1 trillion, which was boosted by the government stimulus checks. Now the savings have dwindled to below $148 billion. Consumers are facing tighter credit conditions and rising rates.
The graph that accompanies this commentary helps to explain the different reactions to the current economic conditions. On one side you have the president and his cabinet, along with many Wall Street pundits, talking about the positive economic news. They point to low unemployment figures and economic growth. They don’t understand why most Americans aren’t more excited.
On the other side are most Americans, who are the bottom 80% of income level. They are struggling financially and are already having a difficult time making ends meet. All this financial “happy-talk” hasn’t changed their financial circumstances and they find themselves financially worse-off.

Kerby Anderson
If you visited New York City more than a decade ago, you likely saw this sign on buses or on subway cars. “If you finish high school, get a job, and get married before having children, you have a 98% chance of not being in poverty.”
That phrase may sound familiar since I have mentioned it in previous commentaries. It is known as the “success sequence” that was first articulated by two scholars at the Brookings Institution. It has been repeated by authors and social scientists many times since.
Jason Riley mentions it in a recent Wall Street Journal commentary because he points to the evidence that the “biggest root cause of crime is fatherlessness.” He reminds us that America’s crime debate tends to focus on various root causes, like poverty and joblessness. Though that may be a partial explanation, the real problem is the lack of two-parent families.
A research paper from the Institute for Family Studies acknowledged that economic conditions play a role in criminal behavior. However, the authors argue that family instability may be the biggest factor. And they also add that factor isn’t receiving the attention it deserves.
“Cities are safer when two-parent families are dominant and more crime-ridden when family instability is common,” the authors write. Nationwide, the total crime rate is higher in cities “that have above the median share of single-parent families, compared to cities that have fewer single-parent families.”
The study concludes that we need to develop cultural incentives that favor marriage and stable families. This is where I believe the church can make a difference. We need pastors and Christian leaders to use their platforms to promote marriage and sexual responsibility.

Kerby Anderson
Yesterday I talked about the research by Jonathan Haidt and others on young girls and ended with his comment that his explanation for girls did not seem to apply to boys. His article attached to his commentary is a preview of his forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation. Rates of mental problems rose significantly around 2013, and the impact of social media on girls is the logical explanation.
But we didn’t see the same rapid increase for boys. Rates of anxiety and depression were much higher for girls than boys. But the rate for suicide is much higher for boys than girls. He concluded that he was focused on the wrong variables.
He explains, “The male crisis didn’t begin on the day that boys traded their flip phones for smartphones packed with social media apps. Boys started to become more pessimistic around four decades ago, although the trend has accelerated in the years since everyone got a smartphone.”
Boys are more attracted to things, machines, and complex systems. They got involved in the early phases of technological entertainment that included computers and video games. These pulled them away from real-world pursuits and into the virtual world.
They have withdrawn from the real world “where they could develop the skills needed to become competent, successful, and loving men.” Instead, they have been “lured into an ever more appealing virtual world in which desires for adventure and for sex can be satisfied, at least superficially, without doing anything that would prepare them for later success in work, love, and marriage.”
These last two days, I have been talking about the significant mental health problems of this young generation. Pastors and Christian leaders need to speak to this issue and warn parents about these dangers.

Kerby Anderson
Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and author of books like The Coddling of the American Mind. I have interviewed him on that book and hope to interview him on his forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation. You can get a preview of his research in the attached article, “I’m Worried About the Boys, Too.”
The research on the problems girls face is well-known. He explains, “Since 2015, I have been trying to solve a mystery: all of a sudden, around 2013, rates of depression, anxiety, and self-harm began rising rapidly for American adolescents.” Let me put that in perspective. Generation Z (those born after 1996) have the worst mental health of any generation, and that data goes all the way back to those born from 1900 to 1925.
The problems increase rapidly on any graph. It looks like a hockey stick with the bend beginning in 2013. He explains what happened in that year. That was the year Facebook bought Instagram. Girls of all ages flocked to the platform.
In previous commentaries, I have mentioned Professor Jean Twenge who noted the same sharp increase. She referred to this youngest generation as the “iGen Generation” because they are digital natives who never knew a time when we didn’t have an iPhone and an iPad or other digital devices.
The conclusion of these various researchers was simple. Social media harms girls through multiple well-known mechanisms. This includes social comparison, early sexualization, perfectionism, cyberbullying and relational aggression, and emotional contagion.
Dr. Haidt ends his article by acknowledging that understanding the impact of social media solved the mystery with girls but doesn’t solve the problem with boys. I will talk about that tomorrow.