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From New York Times bestselling co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, an essential investigation into the collapse in youth mental health—and a scientifically proven path to health and strength There is no bigger public health story now than the collapse in youth mental health. The numbers are terrifying and dominate our headlines. There has been much debate over how we got here, and what to do next, and bestselling author and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt is at the white-hot center of that discourse. Haidt has spent his career speaking wisdom and truth into the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the perfect storm contributing to a public health emergency for Gen Z. For the cohort that hit puberty around 2009, their sense of self developed as the threads of three dramatic technological and social changes smartphones and life with the constant companionship of a screen, front-facing cameras and the bevy of apps that thrived on selfie-culture, and social networks that reduced engagement and affirmation to likes and hearts alone. But phones aren’t the only villain here; the ground for this crisis was seeded by a decades long shift from play-based childhoods to ones defined by over-supervision, structure, and fear. The Anxious Generation is a penetrating and alarming accounting of how we adults began to overprotect children in the real world while giving essentially no protection in the brutal online world. Haidt documents the four fundamental harms of the phone-based sleep deprivation, social deprivation, cognitive fragmentation, and addiction. He then shows the unique harms affecting boys, and the unique harms affecting girls. In the last section of The Anxious Generation , he offers concrete and scientifically based advice with separate chapters addressed to parents, schools, universities, governments, and to teens themselves. He draws on ancient wisdom and modern psychology to help everyone understand what healthy development would look like in the digital age. 10 hrs. 33 min.
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i think i enjoyed the first half of this more than the latter. it quickly became repetitive and some chunks of this were more anecdotal than i wanted it to be. i 1000% believe that kids shouldn’t be glued to an ipad screen but i also sympathize with parents on how difficult that can be in today’s world. also, what is up with the repeated mentions of pornography? not sure how relevant that is as there wasn’t much if any data provided to support it.
i do, however, agree with Haidt’s calls-to-action and think that re-establishing community where kids can enjoy free play with other kids that don’t involve a screen will be crucial for development. however, especially considering the current political climate in the US, i don’t know how feasible it will be to convince schools to enforce no phones and less screen time overall. if we continue to defund schools and overwork teachers, will screen time really be our biggest concern?
this book does pose a lot of important conversations and i think we’re just beginning to scratch the surface of the long-term impacts.
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- research/experience: 3