James O'Loghlin

I guess 50-year-olds have more in common with each other than 25-year-olds do, but is there some inevitability that there'll be some conflict between the generations, or is that just normal dynamics of growing up?

Boy, so many questions in one question, James.

Yes, yes, no, and yes.

Good.

We're back to the start of the alphabet again, alphas.

This is rapid change over in language and culture.

And one of the arguments, interesting, I think you've raised, James, is the lack of cultural continuity in our society.

compared with previous societies.

I mean, one would follow the other, wouldn't it? That if a generation could be anxious partially because they have more to worry about.

So the terminology, the anxious generation, comes from the pretty famous Jonathan Haidt book called The Anxious Generation, in which he looked at rates of anxiety and depression in young people and then attributed it, James, to social media, to the advent of the smartphone in this particular generation and claimed a causal link between the two.

And one of the main recommendations he made, of course, was to ban social media or ban the use of phones under 16, which we've gone ahead and you and I have argued about.

And so actually it is possible that both things are true.

I agree with you, James.

Both things are true.

So if you look at the rates of anxiety being reported continuously in this generation, so not just in the group that's now 25, but in the group that's now 15, et cetera, you will see increasing rates of anxiety being reported by young people.

I mean, you say we have pretty much the same kind of reporting.