THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: Sad Digital World: How it All Started in 2013.

The idea that 2013 was more than ten years ago baffles me, but while dwelling on how much time has passed, I was thinking about how that singular year redefined the current state of affairs in America. Since 1968 or even 1945, has a single year seen so much change?

When we look at the landscape of existential crisis facing the American public, a few things stand out: loneliness, mental illness among the young, the Great Awokening, and political polarization. Obviously, these aren’t the only political issues facing the United States. We have a broken border and out-of-control spending, but these issues are at the root of many of our social conditions.

2013 wasn’t the year these problems started, but it was the point of no return, at least no return that I can see. Although many of these issues are political, politicians aren’t responsible for this turning point – so much to some people’s chagrin, this won’t be a tirade on Obama.

Why was 2013 so important? It was the first time a majority of Americans had a smartphone, and the first time the iPhone became available on all cell phone providers’ plans. It was the first time a supermajority of Americans were on social media. And it was the year that the media began their Great Awokening, whereby all news centered around race and racism. All these technological and social advances fed into one another to further drive Americans apart.

There’s now a wide body of scientific literature showing that smartphones, combined with social media, are linked to anxiety, depression, and social contagions among teenagers, especially teen girls.

From 2010 to 2019, as smartphones and social media became more commonly used, rates of depression in adolescents rose more than 50 percent. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose 131 percent.

Jonathan Haidt noted in the Atlantic how the extreme pivot in most measures of teens’ mental health (which he says began in 2012 instead of 2013) occurred with easy access to social media and the smartphone.

Related: Haidt talks with Margaret Hoover about his thesis on a recent episode of PBS’s reboot of Firing Line: