Are We Creating More Neurodiversity?
How Modern Life Is Rewiring Young Minds
If the word amygdala isn’t part of your common vocabulary, I hope it will be by the end of this article.
The amygdala is the brain’s alarm system. It processes emotions—especially fear—and sends out alerts that activate fight, flight, fawn, or freeze responses. In healthy development, it helps us respond to danger. But an overactive amygdala is a different story. It hijacks rational thought, leaving people hyper-vigilant, reactive, and often stuck in cycles of anxiety.
Today’s children aren’t just experiencing more anxiety—they’re wired for it. Emerging research reveals that the amygdalas of children and adolescents are larger, more reactive, and more dominant than ever before (Tottenham et al., 2010; Lichtblau et al., 2022). This isn’t solely the result of genetic neurodivergence; it’s a shift we’re seeing across populations, affecting kids who would otherwise have been considered neurotypical.
Depending on how you define it, neurodiversity is not just an inborn difference anymore (yes, there are different camps within the neurodivergent "community"). We are creating a new kind of acquired neurodiversity, with the modern world rewiring kids’ brains to operate under constant threat.
And we need to reverse course immediately.
What’s Happening to Kids’ Brains?
Jonathan Haidt, in his latest book The Anxious Generation (2024), calls this crisis the Great Rewiring of Childhood. He argues that two seismic shifts occurred over the last two decades:
The decline of free, unsupervised play, and
The rise of phone-based childhoods.
The result? Kids have been raised in protective, indoor, screen-saturated environments, robbing them of the rich social learning, physical risk-taking, and face-to-face interaction necessary for developing emotional regulation. In short, we’ve rewired the brain’s emotional networks, particularly the amygdala.
Neuroscience Research
Chronic stress and social deprivation enlarge the amygdala, increasing its sensitivity and shrinking regions responsible for regulation like the prefrontal cortex (Tottenham et al., 2010; McLaughlin et al., 2016).
Excessive screen time has been linked to reduced empathy, poor executive functioning, and abnormal brain development in emotional processing areas (He et al., 2011; Montag & Reuter, 2017).
Social media overuse, especially in adolescence, correlates with higher rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm (Twenge et al., 2017). Haidt refers to this as the “phone-based childhood” and argues that it’s fundamentally incompatible with healthy emotional development.
Three Factors Fueling the Amygdala Overload
1. Phone-Based Childhoods and the Two-Dimensional Life
According to Common Sense Media (2022), teens spend 8.5 hours a day on screens. Haidt (2024) highlights how continuous scrolling, swiping, and passive consumption create a childhood dominated by dopamine hits and hypervigilance. The amygdala, bombarded by constant stimuli, becomes overactive and unable to distinguish between minor stressors and genuine threats.
Children’s social skills suffer, they develop anxiety in historically normal situations, and they exhibit increased difficulty regulating emotions—a pattern long associated with amygdala hyperactivation (McLaughlin et al., 2016).
2. Overprotection and the Decline of Free Play
Haidt’s first law of child development? Children are anti-fragile. They grow stronger when exposed to manageable risks. Yet, modern parenting has leaned heavily toward eliminating risk, promoting constant supervision, and removing discomfort. This has backfired spectacularly.
As Haidt (2024) points out, when children are deprived of independent play, they miss critical opportunities to regulate emotions, resolve conflicts, and experience mastery. Instead, they become emotionally fragile, dependent on external regulation from adults, and more prone to amygdala-driven fear responses.
3. The Fear-Fueled Response to the Pandemic
During the pandemic, schools, governments, and parents enacted sweeping measures that—whether necessary or not—scared the life out of children. Kids were told that breathing near someone could kill them. Masks became normal. Human connection became dangerous. And in many places, kids were kept isolated for months or years.
The result? Trauma and long-term rewiring of the brain’s fear centers, particularly the amygdala. Lichtblau et al. (2022) documented structural brain changes in youth subjected to pandemic-related stress, including enlarged amygdalas and reduced cortical thickness.
Some children still refuse to take off their masks, years after mandates have ended. This isn’t about COVID-19; it’s about what the response did to their sense of safety and self-regulation.
What Schools (and Society) Must Do Now
Haidt argues for a return to free play, human connection, and clear boundaries on screen use. Schools, homes, and communities must step up and create environments that rewire children for safety, resilience, and self-regulation.
Schools Must Be Predictable
Schools today are often chaotic—a swirl of demands, expectations, and behavioral crises - for students and adults. But for children with hyperactive amygdalas, predictability is vital.
Creating consistent routines, structured learning environments, and clear expectations reduces anxiety and allows the brain’s rational centers to take the lead (McLaughlin et al., 2016). Programs like UBP (Universal Best Practices for All Learners) and education strengths assessments NAILEP (Neurodiversity & Inclusion Learning Environments Profile) offer strategies for building predictable, inclusive spaces that foster communication, learning, social-emotional strength, and executive functioning. 👉 Learn more at Legacy Education Group
Home Life Must Promote Independence
Haidt (2024) challenges parents to loosen their grip and allow children to fail, explore, and manage risk. Families must model trust and courage, not fear. Rather than surrendering to endless “what if” worries, parents can focus on building resilience—encouraging face-to-face play, outdoor adventure, and limited phone use, particularly before adolescence.
Society Must Revalue Connection Over Convenience
We can’t build a generation of resilient kids if we’re glued to devices and fearful of discomfort ourselves. Haidt calls on societies to establish age-appropriate tech regulations, ban smartphones in schools, and restore childhood to a play-based, exploratory experience.
Final Thoughts
The amygdala problem isn’t limited to kids with diagnosed with a condition or disability. It’s becoming a universal issue, affecting classrooms, families, and entire communities.
We’re living in a time when children’s brains are rewired for fear—not by their biology, but by our choices as a society.
The good news? We can choose differently. We can create safe, structured schools, risk-tolerant families, and tech-sensible societies that help kids develop healthy, balanced amygdalas.
As Haidt says, children are anti-fragile. It’s time we stopped coddling them and let them grow.
References
Haidt, J. (2024). The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Penguin Press.
Tottenham, N. et al. (2010). Prolonged institutional rearing is associated with atypically large amygdala volume and difficulties in emotion regulation. Developmental Science.
McLaughlin, K. A. et al. (2016). Childhood adversities and neural development: A systematic review. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology.
Lichtblau, L. et al. (2022). Neuroanatomical risk factors for the emergence of stress-related psychopathology during adolescence. Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science.
Montag, C., & Reuter, M. (2017). Internet Addiction: Neuroscientific Approaches and Therapeutical Interventions. Springer.
Common Sense Media. (2022). The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens.
Twenge, J. M. et al. (2017). Increases in depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among U.S. adolescents after 2010. Clinical Psychological Science.
