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The Anxious Generation
Books | Psychology / Mental Health
3.9
Jonathan Haidt
THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Book of 2024 • A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book • One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024 • A TIME 100 Must-Read Book of 2024 • Named a Best Book of 2024 by the Economist, the New York Post, and Town & Country • The Goodreads Choice Award Nonfiction Book of the YearA 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.“With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.” —Shannon Carlin, TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024After 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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More Details:
Author
Jonathan Haidt
Pages
400
Publisher
Penguin
Published Date
2024-03-26
ISBN
0593655044 9780593655047
Community ReviewsSee all
"This book is a must-read for anyone raising, working with, or teaching young people today. It made me reflect on how much of my younger years—which were often spent running around outside without parental supervision, sometimes getting into trouble—helped shape who I am today. Haidt explains how the shift from play-based childhoods to phone-based childhoods is transforming how kids develop and process emotions. I appreciate that he doesn’t just lay out the problem—he offers real solutions that are worth considering. "
"A must read for parents navigating mental health crisis.
Topping Barack Obama’s 2024 book list and receiving a glowing endorsement from Bill Gates, this groundbreaking book is a guide for parents of young children. The author tackles the pressing adolescent mental health crisis with clarity, offering a rare combination of analysis and actionable strategies.
Whether you’re seeking to understand the roots of the crisis or searching for practical tools to address it, this book delivers.
A vital resource for every family, this is more than a recommendation - it’s a necessity.
#MentalHealth #ParentingEssentials #MustRead
"
"Latest book from Haidt on the damage social media has done to society, particularly Gen Z. It’s truly shocking (and real) how similar the methods of social media are to the tobacco industry. Scary to think about the long term impacts to a country where an entire generation spends 8+ hours per day on a screen instead of real life interactions. "
"Solid writing style with author providing many supporting details and story to support theory that cell phones and social media is making our kids more vulnerable to anxiety. "
M C
Movie Critic
"Read this twice and will probably read again with a highlighter and take notes. This book is facts and hard data about the dangers of a phone based childhood and what it’s doing to our kids brains. And it’s NOT good at all. We need to protect our kids mental health and the first step is reading this book and implementing what the author suggests."
T B
TA Bancroft
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