Beyond the Screen: How Real-Life Gatherings Are Healing Our Anxious Generation
We started Moonlight with a simple, profound belief: the power of gathering. We felt something transformative happens when people come together, especially in real life and around shared passions. This conviction brewed alongside our observations of a growing loneliness epidemic, the disconnection suburban life often brings, and the increasing difficulty adults face in making friends.
Reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation helped us articulate what we were already feeling. Haidt's work focuses on the sharp rise in anxiety and loneliness among young people, tracing it back to a fundamental cultural shift - from in-person, play-based connection to a screen-based, always-on existence. This shift hasn't just impacted kids; it's reshaped how we all navigate the world.
The Shift We’ve All Lived Through
Between 2010 and 2015, the widespread adoption of smartphones and social media rewired our everyday lives. Children spent less time outside, teens met up less often, and adults, juggling endless digital feeds alongside work and family, began seeing friends less and feeling more isolated. Haidt’s data reveals a stark increase in mental health issues, particularly among girls. More than statistics, his book gives voice to a widespread feeling: we weren't meant to live this way.
Moonlight: Our Response to the Rewiring
While we didn't initially set out to build a direct response to Haidt’s framework, Moonlight emerged as exactly that. We simply believed in the power of real-life gathering. Moonlight was our answer to a question we kept hearing and asking ourselves: "Where do I go to find community that feels real?" We now see that Moonlight is a vital part of the solution to what The Anxious Generation so clearly names.
How We’re Rebuilding Connection
Moonlight creates spaces for real, unfiltered connection. There are no screens, no pressure - just neighbors coming together to make pasta, learn calligraphy, or bake. These moments remind us how good it feels to simply be with others.
We bring back play for all ages. Somewhere along the way, play became something we left behind. Yet, joy, exploration, and creativity are essential, not luxuries. Moonlight experiences invite you to try, make, and wonder again.
We support emotional well-being through presence. Haidt points to social disconnection as a root of anxiety. Moonlight fosters the opposite: presence, eye contact, laughter, stories, and shared silence over tea.
We build local, intergenerational community. Many of us don’t know our neighbors. Moonlight makes those introductions easier. You might find yourself making dumplings with a grandmother from across the street or painting alongside a teenager with a gift for watercolor.
We empower Guides to share what they love. Whether it’s bread-making, taiji, or forest bathing, our Guides are everyday people sharing their gifts. Haidt calls for more unstructured, curiosity-driven learning, and Moonlight makes that tangible and accessible.
Consider a recent empanada-making experience Miriam hosted.
It began with five women - a recent college grad, a teacher, two executives, and a college student home for the summer - gathered around a kitchen island, folding dough and swapping stories.
As the oven warmed, the conversation shifted from food to careers, from technique to technology. We started talking about AI and the job market. The student expressed concern that not learning AI now might hinder her career before it even begins. The executives agreed but added something profound: in a future where everyone has the same tools, the thinkers will stand out - strategic thinkers, creative problem-solvers, people with perspective. It was a conversation none of us expected from an empanada workshop, but that’s what Moonlight makes space for. It's a moment to pause, to learn, and to share ideas across generations and backgrounds - not for performance or productivity, but simply because it matters.
What We’re Learning
The Anxious Generation challenged and comforted us. It showed us how much has changed in just one decade and how much power we still have to rebuild. The solution isn't rejecting technology, but rebalancing it - by choosing to be present, together. Moonlight isn’t a cure-all, but it is a way forward. It’s a quiet invitation to remember what it feels like to be part of something, to look up, to show up, and to belong again.
