If you want young people to thrive in life - at home, in school and in the workplace – you want them to be in what Jonathon Haidt calls discover mode. Children can be set to discover mode by living in the real world. They can never be set to discover mode living online. Jonathan Haidt says that people, especially children, in discover mode have a mindset that scans for opportunities, are like kids in a candy shop, excitedly exploring the world around them, they think for themselves, they want to be allowed to grow to independence, not to stay as children dependent on others .
Contrasted to this, life for kids in defend mode isn’t a happy story. They’re constantly expecting and looking for dangers. They have, what Haidt calls, a scarcity mindset, they cling to their team, their parents, their teachers. They want, they need, to be kept safe. They suffer from anxiety which can develop to become a cognitive behavioural problem. Cognitive behaviour leads to catastrophising, overgeneralising and black and white thinking. People who are suffering from anxiety disorders and depression, often have these distorted thinking patterns bring about uncomfortable physical symptoms, which then bring on feelings of fear and worry, and that might trigger more anxious thinking, perpetuating what becomes a vicious cycle.
This extreme dysfunction was most dramatically on show around 2015 and the following years when the Gen Z children got to university. Suddenly these problems manifested themselves with the Gen Z’ers, no longer in the protective environment of school, getting their first taste of independence, were unable to cope in the real world. They needed a whole lot of things that they couldn’t live without, and a whole bunch of new words came into the language - safe spaces, trigger warnings. Often speakers who were coming to speak on the campus were “cancelled”, another new thing with these kids, because the speakers were going to speak on topics that were outside the very small comfort zones of these Gen Z kids. What had been taught at school as part of modern political indoctrination of what they were told to think and unquestioningly believe.
Being in universities exacerbated their problems in many respects – from the academic staff to their fellow students.
Tag words: Jonathon Haidt; The Anxious Generation; Cognitive behaviour; Gen Z; safe space; trigger warnings; cancel culture; antifragile; defend mode; Ellen Sandseter; Leif Kennair; discover mode; defend mode; embodied;