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Edited June 19, 2024
at 12:59 PM
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Author | Jonathan Haidt |
Publisher | Penguin Press |
Publication date | March 26, 2024 |
Print length | 395 pages |
Customer Reviews | 4.7⭐ / 1,439 ratings |
Great on Kindle | ✅ |
THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.
"Erudite, engaging, combative, crusading." —New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)
"Words that chill the parental heart… thanks to Mr. Haidt, we can glimpse the true horror of what happened not only in the U.S. but also elsewhere in the English-speaking world… lucid, memorable… galvanizing." —Wall Street Journal
"[An] important new book... The shift in kids' energy and attention from the physical world to the virtual one, Haidt shows, has been catastrophic, especially for girls." —Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times
After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?
In
The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the "play-based childhood" began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the "phone-based childhood" in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this "great rewiring of childhood" has interfered with children's social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.
Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the "collective action problems" that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.
Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.
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As a dad of a 14/12/9 year olds this is timely for me and 100% required reading for anyone with kids or adjacent to kids or teaching kids or basically everyone needs to read this book. We completely f'd up Gen Z (sorry to them) but Gen Alpha can be saved.
I've bought multiple and encouraged friends and family to read it.
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As a dad of a 14/12/9 year olds this is timely for me and 100% required reading for anyone with kids or adjacent to kids or teaching kids or basically everyone needs to read this book. We completely f'd up Gen Z (sorry to them) but Gen Alpha can be saved.
I've bought multiple and encouraged friends and family to read it.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Change has to start somewhere, right?
Frankly it really is more about parenting than the device or social media. A lot of parents just let the kids go because it is easier.
Then they can do those things that need to get done. Dinner, laundry, cleaning etc etc.
I get it but getting kids involved in tons of other stuff is important.
Funny but my son is an avid D&D player. Lots of friends playing. It is a great way to socialize with others.
He just graduated with a BS in architecture. Going for his masters next.
Frankly it really is more about parenting than the device or social media. A lot of parents just let the kids go because it is easier.
Then they can do those things that need to get done. Dinner, laundry, cleaning etc etc.
I get it but getting kids involved in tons of other stuff is important.
Funny but my son is an avid D&D player. Lots of friends playing. It is a great way to socialize with others.
He just graduated with a BS in architecture. Going for his masters next.
It is all about balance. My son had his own PC since he was pretty young, but he played soccer, went camping, etc. all sorts of things.