Nosedive, Brand Management, and an Anxious Generation
In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes something that made me think of a Black Mirror episode from the mid-2010s. Referring to the challenges of navigating a contemporary social context that thrives on likes and retweets, Haidt writes, “Succeeding socially in that universe required them to devote a large part of their consciousness–perpetually–to managing what became their online brand.”[1]
That statement is epitomized in Black Mirror’s 2016 “Nosedive” episode.
In this post, I’ll say a bit about Black Mirror, then a bit about the episode and the cultural backstory, and along the way I’ll make some connections with Haidt’s observations in the book.
Black Mirror
Created by Charlie Brooker, Black Mirror was one of those darker-but-creatively-genius shows to stream in the 2010s on Netflix. The series produced dramatic commentary on how good things can become ultimate things, and in every case there was some sort of new-ish technology involved. The first four seasons were, for the most part, disturbingly brilliant, though most definitely deserving of its “MA” rating. The show’s unstated premise was unwittingly consistent with Martin Luther’s commentary on the first commandment in the Book of Concord’s Large Catechism: “That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.”[2] It was as if Tim Keller’s recently (at the time, in 2010) published Counterfeit Gods was on display in the lives of each character. Keep in mind Keller’s definition for a counterfeit god: “A counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living. An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it without a second thought.”[3]
For Charlie Brooker’s characters, various forms of technology had become pathways exposing ultimate yearnings and deep anxieties and fears embedded in the dark recesses of the human heart. In many of the episodes, the characters did what they probably did not originally intend, and through the use of some form of new technology, they did indeed end up spending their emotional energy or financial resources toward whatever it was they were hoping for, in ways they probably never imagined.
I think Brooker and company had a pretty good read on the anxiety and fear dimensions of our current technological moment. Haidt differentiates the two related topics stating, “Anxiety is related to fear, but is not the same thing. The diagnostic manual of psychiatry (DSM-5-TR) defines fear as ‘the emotional response to real or perceived imminent threat, whereas anxiety is anticipation for future threat.’”[4] Younger people are consumed with managing their brand. They anticipate what their peers and even strangers are going to think about their latest post, their image, their picture, their whatever. It is the related anxiety that Haidt believes to be “the defining mental illnesses of young people today.”[5]
Enter episode one of season three in 2016. “Nosedive.” But first, a bit of backstory.
The episode and backstory
The episode dropped on the heels of the 2010 – 2015 timeframe, five years where, according to Haidt, the mental health of young people plunged.[6] Those years saw “a sharp rise in rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm” among girls and boys, but “hitt(ing) girls hardest.”[7] The culprit? Personal brand management among young people? Actually, it was at least that. Haidt points out a number of contributing factors: the invention of the smartphone in 2007, the “like” and “retweet” buttons in 2009, the iPhone’s front-facing camera in 2010, and an entire “selfie-based social media ecosystem that we know today”[8] in 2012. Additionally, we had prior decades of overprotection among parents, limiting their children’s free play out of fear, and the current era’s parental under-protection, allowing their children to have unmonitored free access to smartphones and ipads. In fact this last statement is Haidt’s central claim of the book: “overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world…are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.”[9]
Again, all of these factors (the smartphone, its apps, and ecosystem) aren’t necessarily bad things. In fact they can be immensely helpful. But they can also foster good-things-become-ultimate-things pursuits (i.e., security, comfort, reputation, control, etc.). And in the case of young people, Haidt believes we have more going on than mere correlation. Based on the research, Haidt posits, “that social media harms adolescents, especially girls going through puberty.”[10] Social media usage not only correlates with a decline in mental health, it causes it.
Back to “Nosedive.”
For Lacie Pound, the main character in “Nosedive” played by Bryce Dallas Howard, everything was about personal brand management. More importantly, it was about maintaining one’s score in a type of social credit system. One’s social credit score affects one’s ability to buy a home, rent a car, have a job, be included in the activities of others with a baseline score – everything. People had the ability to rate you on their smartphone based on what they thought of you or how they experienced an interaction with you. Their rating directly affected your score, and thus your life, for better or for worse.
Conclusion
Without spoiling the episode, I’ll just say that Lacie’s score was not congruent with what she hoped for. “Nosedive” displays the heart’s desire for belonging, significance, reputation and what happens when these good things become ultimate things. It played on the experienced anxiety of society’s current – current then and current now – moment.
Kudos to Haidt, for not only assessing real problems, problems played out in fictional Netflix shows like Black Mirror, but also offering “four reforms”[11] beginning with “No smartphones before high school.”[12]
I’ll conclude with some questions for the cohort: Do you think Haidt is correct in his diagnosis, or is there something deeper at work here? Second, what do you agree/disagree with in his four reforms? What would you change or add?
[1] Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (SAMPLE), New York: Penguin, 2024, Kindle Version, location 188 of 1183.
[2] See: https://thebookofconcord.org/large-catechism/part-i/commandment-i/.
[3] Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods, New York: Penguin, 2009, xviii.
[4] Haidt, Location 488 – 492 of 1183.
[5] Haidt, Location 496 of 1183.
[6] Haidt, location 422 of 1183.
[7] Haidt, location 265 of 1183.
[8] Haidt, location 640 of 1183.
[9] Haidt, location 232 of 1183.
[10] Haidt, location 323 of 1183.
[11] Haidt, location 344 of 1183.
Haidt proposes the following:
- “No smartphones before high school. Parents should delay children’s entry into round-the-clock internet access by giving only basic phones (phones with limited apps and no internet browser) before ninth grade (roughly age 14).
- No social media before 16. Let kids get through the most vulnerable period of brain development before connecting them to a firehose of social comparison and algorithmically chosen influencers.
- Phone-free schools. In all schools from elementary through high school, students should store their phones, smartwatches, and any other personal devices that can send or receive texts in phone lockers or locked pouches during the school day. That is the only way to free up their attention for each other and for their teachers.
- Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence. That’s the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults.” (Haidt, location 344 of 1183).
[12] Haidt, location 344 of 1183.
About the Author
Travis Vaughn
5 responses to “Nosedive, Brand Management, and an Anxious Generation”
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This is such a fascinating reflection! Your connection between Haidt’s work and Black Mirror’s “Nosedive” episode is spot on, especially in highlighting the anxiety tied to personal brand management. The way you wove in the cultural and technological context of the time really helps frame the issue, making Haidt’s argument even more compelling. I also appreciate how you opened up a thoughtful conversation with your cohort at the end—great questions to ponder! Excellent work!
Also – I had to stop watching Black Mirror. It was too much for me.
Black Mirror was indeed dark. And I probably should have stopped watching after the first four seasons, as season 5 and 6 were simply not as interesting. I’m guessing those seasons had different writers. Something clearly changed.
I can’t think of a better series that captured the essence of what Haidt wrote about, and it seemed that the show’s writers/producers/directors were well ahead of research that would later come out (like Haidt’s research). It’s almost like they had read Haidt’s book more than a decade before it was published. Or…maybe they did, and we are living in a Black Mirror episode. Ha!
Travis-Interesting post. I was not familiar with Black Mirror, and you have made me curious- though it sounds as if it might be pretty grim. I really like your call out of anxiety being based in the future. That is a concept that will stick with me for a while. Let me respond to your questions:
1) I do think that on the surface, Haidt’s observations are correct, but perhaps a deeper dive into why these phones are taking center stage is warranted. I know the trope about the dopamine fix that we get in scanning social media, but I think even that concept could be further analyzed into why people find this activity so deeply satisfying.
2) I did like his 4 reforms but am concerned that his call for collective action may not be within our grasp. I just read the phone rules for my son’s high school and was not surprised to see some of Haidt’s ideas adopted, but not all. In this country of rugged individualism, collective action will continue to be a struggle.
Yes, in our ruggedly individualistic cultural context, collective action will indeed be challenging. And if Tom Holland is right in Dominion, Christianity’s impact on our Western cultural context is somehow connected to that challenge (and, it must also be connected to the solution, and the way we would go about solutioning). It would be interesting to connect Haidt’s commentary/diagnosis of the problem and his solution (his reforms) to Holland’s thesis of how Christianity’s influence has so affected the West and how we think and act and solutionize. But I digress.
And yes, Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror did have some pretty grim episodes. It wasn’t necessarily popcorn-eating, light material. Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot (Esmail also produced Homecoming that starred Julia Roberts), which I wrote about in the fall of 2023, was also sort of in the same genre (though less science “fiction”).
“Do you think Haidt is correct in his diagnosis, or is there something deeper at work here? Second, what do you agree/disagree with in his four reforms? What would you change or add?”
To your first question: yes and no.
I do think Haidt is on to something though I think there are other factors at play. For example, (don’t ask me to cite this reference) he says that hospital visits for teens increased once smart phones became popular, what he doesn’t say is that the ACA also came into being at about the same time, making it more affordable for those who might not have had health insurance before to make a hospital visit. So, in some ways I think Haidt is an alarmist when it comes to cell phones affecting mental health in teens but I also don’t think he is wrong.
About his reforms: I don’t know. I do think the no phone until high school is a great idea. However, I was determined that I would hold to his rule for my daughter…that is, until, I was having to text her friends to get messages to her. It became ridiculous for me to be texting her friends telling them to tell her that I would pick her up after school rather than just texting her. One might argue that I could have just called the school and that is true- but with the speed our plans keep changing that wouldn’t always work well – esp when it was after school and the office was closed.
We ended up getting my daughter a phone. No social media though and lots of parental controls.